“Hijo de mi alma,” Pemberton said to Rodrigo, “you may not take the lamb up-stairs; stay with him till we come down.”
Rodrigo, nothing disappointed, drew out a little cart, and seating himself in it turned the wheels so that the cart slid along the stone path in the middle of the garden, the lamb trotting beside; back and forth, back and forth, we heard the rattling of those wheels (I can hear them still) as the lonely boy and the lamb played together.
“Did you ever see a game of football?” Patsy asked the child. Rodrigo had only seen pictures of football, but he had seen pelota, and he could hit the bull’s-eye with his arrow three times out of five.
“Rodrigo is a Spaniard; he is going into the army,” Pemberton said, as he led the way up-stairs to the winter quarters. “My grandmother was a Spaniard; my parents called themselves ‘cosmopolitans’; some other people called them disgruntled Americans. I’m a man without a country,—one of that kind is enough in a family!”
He flared up with sudden passion. To make a diversion J. complimented him on the winter parlor, a bare, comfortable room with a few good pictures, the necessary furniture and a refreshing absence of junk.
“No little tables of jointed silver fish and jade idols here?” he said. “We’re still half Orientals in Seville; we don’t suffer from the dreadful ‘too much’ that is stifling you in America!”
The winter kitchen, all white marble and tiles, had a gas range, the most modern thing in the house, and deal tables scrubbed with soap and sand till you saw the grain of the wood. Something was said about the exquisite neatness of the house.
“Andalusians,” Pemberton assured us, “are remarkably clean people. Did you notice our calle? You don’t often see a street so well kept. Each householder is obliged to take care of the part before his house; competition is a good principle in street cleaning.”
The upper corridor, giving access to the winter rooms, was shut in with glass; it led to the azotea, a terrace that overhung the court of roses. The flowers here had more sun and air than in the patio; the carnations were as big as coffee cups, the damask roses as large as saucers. A second flight of stairs led up to the winter bed and dressing-rooms.
“These mattresses are of carded wool,” said Pemberton; “the blankets,—feel how light and soft they are,—were made at the farm, spun and woven by an old woman, the last survivor of my grandmother’s servants. These sheepskins are spread under the mattresses for warmth, for tiled floors are cold. The fleece is of three years’ growth; see, it is as fine as silk.”