So one day we heard the whistle of the "Gila" going up; and when she came down river, I was all ready to go on board, with Patrocina and Jesusita, [*] and my own child, who was yet but five months old. I bade farewell to the man on detached service, and we headed down river. We seemed to go down very rapidly, although the trip lasted several days. Patrocina took to her bed with neuralgia (or nostalgia); her little devil of a child screamed the entire days and nights through, to the utter discomfiture of the few other passengers. A young lieutenant and his wife and an army surgeon, who had come from one of the posts in the interior, were among the number, and they seemed to think that I could help it (though they did not say so).
* Diminutive of Jesus, a very common name amongst the
Mexicans. Pronounced Hay-soo-se-ta.
Finally the doctor said that if I did not throw Jesusita overboard, he would; why didn't I "wring the neck of its worthless Mexican of a mother?" and so on, until I really grew very nervous and unhappy, thinking what I should do after we got on board the ocean steamer. I, a victim of seasickness, with this unlucky woman and her child on my hands, in addition to my own! No; I made up my mind to go back to Ehrenberg, but I said nothing.
I did not dare to let Doctor Clark know of my decision, for I knew he would try to dissuade me; but when we reached the mouth of the river, and they began to transfer the passengers to the ocean steamer which lay in the offing, I quietly sat down upon my trunk and told them I was going back to Ehrenberg. Captain Mellon grinned; the others were speechless; they tried persuasion, but saw it was useless; and then they said good-bye to me, and our stern-wheeler headed about and started for up river.
Ehrenberg had become truly my old man of the sea; I could not get rid of it. There I must go, and there I must stay, until circumstances and the Fates were more propitious for my departure.
CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER AT EHRENBERG
The week we spent going up the Colorado in June was not as uncomfortable as the time spent on the river in August of the previous year. Everything is relative, I discovered, and I was happy in going back to stay with the First Lieutenant of C Company, and share his fortunes awhile longer.
Patrocina recovered, as soon as she found we were to return to Ehrenberg. I wondered how anybody could be so homesick for such a God-forsaken place. I asked her if she had ever seen a tree, or green grass (for I could talk with her quite easily now). She shook her mournful head. "But don't you want to see trees and grass and flowers?"
Another sad shake of the head was the only reply.