V
It was an unthrifty-looking place, El Cuco—very small, as its name implied. How Don Mateo had asked any woman to marry him with no more to give her than the small plantation of El Cuco, one could not imagine. The place was little more than a conuco, and Don Mateo, through careless ways and losses at gambling, selling a little strip of field here and some forest land there, was gradually reducing the property to the size of a native holding.
The lady who had inveigled Don Mateo into marrying her sat upon the veranda, fat and hearty. Her eyes were beginning to open to the fact that Don Mateo had not been quite candid with her. He had said, "My house is not very fine, Señorita, but I have land; and if you will come there as my wife, we will begin to build a new casa as soon as the crops are in and paid for." The crops had never come in, as far as the Señora had discovered; and how could crops be paid for before they were gathered? There had grown up within the household a very fine crop of complaints, but these Don Mateo smoothed over with his ready excuses and kindliness of manner.
Agueda leaned down to the small footpath gate to unfasten the latch. She found that the gate was standing a little way open and sunk in the mud, but that there was no room to pass through.
"Go round to the other side," called a voice from the veranda.
A half-dozen little children, of all shades, came trooping down the path. Then, as she turned to ride round the dilapidated palings, they scampered across the yard, a space covered by some sort of wild growth. They met her in a troop at the large gate, which was also sunk in the ground through the sagging of its hinges. Fortunately, it had stood so widely open now for some years that entrance was quite feasible.
Agueda struck spur to Castaño's side, and he trotted round to the veranda. They stopped at the front steps, and throwing her foot over the saddle, Agueda prepared to dismount.
"What do you want here?" asked a fat voice from the end of the veranda.
"I should like to see Aneta, Señora," said Agueda. "May one of the peons take my horse?"