Rodrigo freed his hand for his brother, whose questioning eyes searched that haggard face from which all trace of youth had disappeared.
“Rafael,” said the soldier, meeting the boy’s look steadily, “when the Yankees raised a Spanish battle-ship, that had gone down in gallant fight, they found in the engine-room the body of her Chief Engineer. His hand still gripped the lever. He had died at his post. He had done his duty.”
The lad stood erect, with folded arms, as he had stood by the Sultana Fountain on that April night that seemed so long ago.
“That is a beautiful story,” said Pilarica, who had not understood.
“All stories are beautiful if one has a magic cap,” answered Big Brother, smiling down into the winsome little face, but not with his old gay smile. Yet there was something sweeter in it than before.
“No,” corrected Pilarica, who was kissing the empty sleeve over and over. “It is Rafael who has the magic cap. It turns badnesses into gladnesses.”
“And it will turn this pain into splendor, my brother,” said Rodrigo, reeling from weakness and catching at Rafael’s shoulder with the one thin hand. “Have you a bit of chocolate about you, laddie? How tall you have grown! And how you have come to look like Father! That is his own courage I am seeing in your face.”
“I will run on ahead to Tia Marta, who will make you a feast,” cried Pilarica, so lost in rapture that still she did not catch the meaning of what Rodrigo had said.
“Bread and cheese will be feast enough, especially if Tia Marta adds her pinch of pepper,” replied Rodrigo, with a queer little ghost of a laugh. “The Geography Gentleman—Heaven reward him!—cared for me and a dozen more of us at Granada and gave me gold for the railroad journey north to you; but there were so many of my half-starved comrades on the train that the money was all gone before we had reached Leon and I have been walking and living on the charity of berry-bushes and walnut-trees ever since. But bide a wee, Caramel Heart! I have grand news for you. You are to go to school,—a real girls’ school. What do you think of that? It is in charge of a lady from over the sea, Doña Alicia, a lady who loves Spain and was kind to us poor fellows in the hospital. Father would, I know, be glad to have you go to her and learn.”
“It will be lovely to learn,” trilled Pilarica, the leaves rustling a song of their own under her tripping feet. “And when Father comes home, we’ll be just as happy under the sky as the angels are on top. Grandfather says they dance all night and sometimes they jostle down a star. And Father will come home soon, for the pillar prayers are always answered. Only see! Dolores’ prayer and mine are answered already.”