“Then run to Marta for a bit of luncheon while I bridle Benoni. Tell her we may not be home till nightfall, for father said we were never to worry the dear old thing—so don’t forget that, and be sure to bring a lot of her freshest bollos.”[2]
Carlota had already started, but paused astonished to ask:
“Why, brother, does old Marta ever worry? I didn’t know it. Worrying is what my father does sometimes, isn’t it? When people come to talk to him about their troubles?”
Carlos felt that any conversation with the word “father” in it was to be avoided, so answered indifferently:
“Oh! not really worry, you know. She wouldn’t do that about me; nor about you, if I were with you. And I s’pose I’m master of the rancho when my father”—but there was that word forcing itself in again, and the boy hurried past it to add, convincingly: “A master, a Don or a Señor, a gentleman, always looks out for the comfort of all his old women and little girls.”
They would never get the delectable bollos at this rate! For the mood and manner which had fallen upon her twin was so new to Carlota that she could only stand and stare at his swaggering movements. Seeing this, he promptly assumed his natural manner, which was not that of a care-taker, and, springing to Benoni’s back laid himself down along it while, clasping the animal’s beautiful neck, he rode out of the corral.
Again standing at her doorway, old Marta awaited the children’s approach, reflecting:
“Ah! little ones! So it is always. The easy things of life fall to my Carlos, by right, is it not? While to thee, niña the speeding feet of my service, the burden and the care. But not yet, heart of mine. Look not so at Marta with thy great eyes. There shall be no care for thee, beloved, while I live. What do I hear? Bollos? Sweets? Not home till nightfall? Caramba! With whom, then, shall I play when all my tasks are done? Si,[3] I know. I will take me my guitar and I will to myself sing, why not. But to myself, en verdad,[4] quite to my own self.”
Now, this wise old dame knew that nothing would more easily lure her charges home in good season than this suggestion of songs and guitar. To hear old Marta sing, in her cracked and toothless voice, was the funniest experience of their gay young lives. It was rarely she could be prevailed upon to so amuse them and Carlota hesitated and called to Carlos:
“Brother, did you hear that? This is the night when Marta sings. If we shouldn’t get back in time! But—they will be shearing for many days to come.”