Before many months had passed, a youth came to the town one day. He was apparently a Spanish mestizo, declared himself the son of the dead stranger, and established himself in that far-off corner of the world. He began to farm the land and devoted himself especially to the cultivation of indigo. Don Saturnino was a taciturn young man, violent and sometimes cruel, but very active and industrious. He built a wall around his father’s grave and, from time to time, went all alone to visit it. A few years later he married a young girl from Manila who bore him a son, Rafael, the father of Crisostomo.
Don Rafael, from his earliest youth, was fond of farming. Under his care, the agriculture which had been started and fostered by his father was rapidly developed. New inhabitants flocked to the vicinity, and among them were a great many Chinese. The village grew very fast and was soon supporting a native priest. After it had become a pueblo, the native priest died and Father Dámaso took his place.
Still the grave and the adjoining lands were respected. At times, children, armed with sticks and stones, ventured to wander about, exploring the surrounding country and gathering guayabas, papays, lomboy and other native fruits. Then, all of a sudden, while they were busily engaged collecting the fruits, some one would catch a glimpse of the old rope hanging from the balitî tree, and stones would be heard to fall. Then some one would cry, “The old man!” “The old man!” Dropping fruit, sticks and stones, and leaping from the trees, the boys would flee in all directions through the thickets and between the rocks, not stopping until they emerged from the grove, pale and panting, some laughing, some crying.
You could not say that Don Rafael, while alive, was the most influential man in San Diego, although it is true that he was the richest, owned the most land, and had put almost everybody else under obligations to him. He was modest and always belittled his own deeds. He never tried to form a party of his own, and, as we have already seen, no one came to his aid when his fortune seemed to fail him.
Whenever Captain Tiago arrived in town, his debtors received him with an orchestra, gave him a banquet, and loaded him down with gifts. If a deer or a wild boar was caught he always had a quarter of it for his own table; if any of his debtors found a beautiful horse, within a half hour it would be in the Captain’s stable. All of this is true, but still when the Captain had his back turned they made fun of him and referred to him as Sacristan Tiago.
The gobernadorcillo[1] was an unhappy fellow who never commanded but always obeyed; he never attacked any one, but was always attacked; he never ordered anybody, but everybody ordered him; and besides, he had to take the responsibility for everything that they had commanded, ordered or disposed. The position had cost him five thousand pesos and many humiliations, but, considering the profits he made, the price was very cheap.
San Diego was like Rome; not the Rome of the time of Romulus, when he marked out the walls with a plough, nor when, later, he bathed in his own blood and that of others and dictated laws to the world: no, San Diego was like the Rome of contemporaneous history, with this difference—instead of being a city of marble, monuments and coliseums, it was a city of saualî[2] and cock-pits. The parochial priest of San Diego corresponded to the Pope in the Vatican; the alferez[3] of the Civil Guard to the King of Italy in the Quirinal, but both in the same proportion as the sauali or native wood and the nipa cock-pits corresponded to the monuments of marble and coliseums. And in San Diego, as in Rome, there was continual trouble. Everybody wanted to be the leading señor, and there was always some one else in the way. Let us describe two of these ambitious citizens.
Friar Bernando Salvi was the young and silent Franciscan whom we mentioned in a preceding chapter. He had even more of the customs and manners of his brotherhood than had his predecessor, the violent Father Dámaso. He was slender, sickly, almost always pensive, and very strict in the fulfillment of his religious duties as well as very careful of his good name. A month after his arrival in the parish almost all the inhabitants became brothers of the “Venerable Third Order,” to the great grief of its rival, “The Brotherhood of the Most Sacred Rosary.” His heart leaped with joy at seeing on every neck in the town from four to five scapularies, a knotted cord around every waist, and every funeral procession dressed in habits of guingon. The sacristan mayor or head warden of the order made quite a little capital by selling and giving away all those things considered necessary to save the soul and overcome the devil.
The only enemy of this powerful soul saver, with tendencies in accord with the times, was, as we have already stated, the alferez. The women relate a story of how the devil tried one day to tempt Father Salvi and how the latter caught him, tied him to the bed post, whipped him with a lash and kept him tied fast for nine days. Thus he had been able to conquer the devil entirely. As a result, any one who persisted in being an enemy of the priest was generally considered a worse man than the devil himself—an honor which the alferez alone enjoyed. But he merited this reputation. He had a wife, an old, powdered and painted Filipino by the name of Doña Consolación. The husband and several other people called her by a different name, but that does not matter. Anyway, the alferez was accustomed to drown the sorrows of unhappy wedlock by getting as drunk as a toper. Then, when he was thoroughly intoxicated he would order his men to drill in the sun, he himself remaining in the shade, or, perhaps, he would occupy himself in beating his wife.
When her husband was dead drunk, or was snoring away in a siesta, and Doña Consolación could not fight with him, then, wearing a blue flannel shirt, she would seat herself in the window, with a cigar in her mouth. She had a dislike of children and so from her window she would scowl and make faces at every girl that passed. The girls, on the other hand, were afraid of her, and would hurry by at a quick pace, never daring to raise their eyes or draw a breath. But say what you may, Doña Consolación had one great virtue; she was never known to look into a mirror.