Mayflower (Flor de mayo)

p high and dry on the sand. There would be plenty of time to get their tan on when they got out to sea. The two men talked slowly and sleepily as if the glare and the heat alo

ud, rose with its red roof and its blue trimmings, over long lines of boats drawn up on shore to make a sort of nomad city with streets and cross roads, much like a Greek encampment of the Heroic Age, when the triremes were used for entrenchments. The lateen masts, gracefully tilted forward, with their points blunt and fat, looked like a forest of headless lances. The tarred ropes twined and intertwined li

rippled in like thin blades of crystal over the spangled sand, were the little boats, the trollers, al volantí, tiny spry craft that looked like chicks of the heavy boats lying, in the row behind, in pairs of the same size and color-barcas del bòu. In the third file, the

his array of color, some gulls, apparently drunk with sunshine, were leisurely planing in wide circles, occasionally

point receded, forming a bight in the land, with masses of green and clusters of white cottages alternating along the coast. Here were the hills of the Puig, big swellings in the low-lying strand, which the sea sometimes swept over in its angry moods. And there was the c

s, he had inherited from his master, tio Borrasca, an instinct that never failed. A puff or two next week, a bit of chop, but nothing m

nous cadence of a hoisting song: Oh ... oh ... isa! and a number of boys would tug at the mast they were stepping, pulling all together at the proper beat in the sleepy rhythm. It was dinner time; and tangle-haired women kept calling in shrill notes from the galley doors; for the "cats" were o

iting for that phlegmatic fellow, to whom words

ake a killing as so many others had done. There was a living in the sea for any man. Some people ate bread black, after sweati

got up and walked to the bow of the old boat, to s

like gibbets. Seaward stretched the Breakwater, a cyclopean wall of red bowlders heaped up in confusion to make a lee on that storm-swept shore. As background to the whole scene, the tall buildings of the Grao, warehouses, office buildings,-the aristocracy and money of the port; and then a long straight line of roof

d. The Rector sat down ag

d to say, over to the costa d'afora, to Algiers! No fishing, you understand. Fish aren't always around when you need them most. No, not that! But a cargo of contraband, the boat cra

ich for days and days had been dancing before his eyes, till now he could actually see the fragrant bundles standing there wrapped in burlap on the sand. He was a son

w that business was dull on the wharves, and tio Mariano hadn't gotten him that job in the coast a

n old guitar every time a sea went under her, ready for breaking up, about. But they hadn't fooled him, they hadn't fooled him! Thirty duros, he had paid, not a cent more. And the firewood in her was worth that much. But she would keep afloat under men who knew the taste of salt water. For his part, he

wn in Algiers, as an old hand at the business. And like a man who has his mind made up and is afraid he'll change it if he waits too long, he thought he would go at once to see that influentia

and among them some young roosters were pecking about or grooming their shiny feathers, all agleam with a metallic rainbow luster. Along the drain from the Gas House a number of women on hands and knees were scrubbing clothes or washing dishes in a pestilential water that stained the stones on its edges black. Here was the frame of a new boat about which some carpenters were pounding, and from a distance the skeleton of unpainted timber looked like the remains of some prehistoric saurian. Across the drain, some rope-walkers, hanks of hemp about their waists, were backing away from the lathe, letting the yellow strands revolve between their deft fingers. And then the Caba?al, so

it of the sailor's habitation, which, in all its details of architecture, of color and line, called up memories of life at sea. The village looked like a collection of grounded craft. In front of some of the cabins stout masts with pulleys had been set up, and the pulley and mast meant that there lived a skipper of a pair o

t. Footsteps echoed back across the broad sidewalks as in an abandoned town. Tufted plane trees were languishing in the solitude, pining for the gay nights of summer when there was laughing everywhere, people running about, and a piano banging in every cott

, black silk caps, and weather-beaten countenances. Dominoes were rattling on the tables, and th

he scene of his triumphs in generosity in

ing in disdainful condescension to tio Gori, an old ship-carpenter from down the beach, who had been going to that café every afternoon for twenty years, to read the newspape

tlemen ... Si?or Segasta has so

is reading to observe

a is a humbu

and the Premier's speech in the Cortes began to unwind, syllable by

n-re-ply-to-what-the-Hon-o-ra-b

ooked up from his paper and, with a smile of canny sup

s a d--

outh to call to his nephews with an: "Hey there, boys!" and motion to them to take the chairs he had been keeping for his influential friends. Tonet sat down with his back to his brother and uncle, so as to follow the fast game of dominoes that was rattling

had money enough to live on without working. People had dubbed him el Callao because at least a dozen times every day he told the story of that famous battle for the Peruvian seaport-the last that Spain relinquished in South America-which he had witnessed as an ordinary seaman on the Numancia. In these narratives he mentioned the

prise of the sort. But his principal activity was doing charity-lending the fishermen, or their wives, advances on their pay at fifty per cent a month; and this had given him a grip on the throats of the poorest elements along shore, so that he could deliver their vote bodily in e

ng but the hope they had of inheriting something when he died, thought him the most respectable and kindly man in the whole village, though very seldom had they been admitted to his pretty house on Queen stre

e people something else to smoke besides the stink-weed forced on the public by the government! Thanks to the Lord, who had stood by him through thick and thin, and to his own guts-don't forget that-he had made a little something-enough to keep him from worrying in his old age! But times weren't what they had been! The revenue men were now in charge of young navy officers just off the school-ships, with all sorts of stuck-up ideas in their heads and ears a yard long to catch any talk that was going around; and not a one of them would keep his eyes shut for an hour, if you pa

enny. Hell of a trade for a fellow, that, where you killed yourself working and died poor as a rat. But for something of that other kin

ve the Rector a good load on credit, and if he were spry and got it ashore all right, a way would be found to sell it. "Thanks ever so much, uncle, grasies, tio! Que bo es vosté! It's certainly nice of you." And the Rector's eyes were almost running over with tears. But tio Mariano didn't like sentiment. What was he in the family for? He always ha

by, and did not try to follow the conversation which the two men were carryin

r-Saturday. He would be better pleased to leave earlier in the week, but there was that procession to the Sepulcher with the body of Christ on Good Friday, and he had promised to lead the mob of "Jews." Something he could

e! The Rector and his brother rose to their feet on seeing that the august personages their uncle had been expecting were approaching. They could depend on him, then. Yes, and another talk later on to fix on the last details. Would they

ncle say?" Tone

, well, at least, he could see his way through the summer. The good-natured Rector kept reflecting to himself on what an unselfish fellow his brother was, and almost felt like hugging him. Yes, that boy's