Mayflower (Flor de mayo)

n in Valencia; but on reaching the Glorieta,

left on the mansard windows. The statue of Charles II seemed to be melting into the mellow bluish transparency of the light-filled atmosphere. Through the grat

es rolled above the elbow, an army of lunch-boxes slung over shoulders, a pitter-patter of feet, hopping in short quick steps like sparrows, a hub-bub of good-night

tion it had for him, that moving mass of white handkerchiefs drawn tightly over pretty foreheads! What a bedlam! A regiment of females in mutiny! A nunn

ng over toward him. Her companions were to wait for friends from another floor, and they might be some min

an, though with an attractive swaying of her body which made her skirt go up and down like the marking buoy in a yacht race. Shou

the lot! We hitched the oxen on to her yesterday, and now she's in the water, anchored with the other boats in the harbor. But there's no mistaking her, girl! She strikes your eye like a se?orita in the middle of a bunch of beach-trailers!" He had been in town to get a fe

thusiasm, about his boat. By the time the pair had reached the bakery of Figuetes, Pascualo had lapsed into his normal tac

wide open to swallow half the bread in town! What I don't see is how, in conditions like that, there's a woman left in the world who can laugh. For instance ..." And the golden-haired Diana, so insensible to the allurements of men, but reared withal among the filthy-mouthed ragamuffins of the seashore, struck an air of stern and serious modesty, and recounted in words of disconcerting directness, but with a rippling sweet

longs to their husband and what belongs to the other fellow! Imagine living with a thing like that! Thank God, I didn't draw one of that kind. I've got a good wife and a happy home!"

from morning till night to feed his woman and his boys and his girls, and comes home from the shop and finds my lady flouncing around with Mr. 'Friend'! God, girl! I'd cut the wench's throat, I would-if I swung for it! If you ask me, I say-well, whose fault is it? The women! Yes, the women! What was a woma

a man at the bottom of it. Mama says so, too. There are two kinds of men in this world-scamps and puddingheads! If a woman goes wrong, it's the man that's to blame. If she's not married they are all after her to get what they want ... and maybe I don't know that! If I was the fool some men take me for, God knows the fix I'd be in to-day! And if you are married, well, it's worse, almost-for the scamps try to get you in

o what people said, there wasn't a decent woman in town, nor a husband that wasn't the joke of the beach. But that's only a way they had of amusing themselves. The Caba?al had no manners, as don Santiago, the curate, said so well! "Now, take me, for instance. I've got the best, sweetest wife in the world, and everybody knows it! Well, does that keep those fools from blabbing about her? And who's the man? Tonet, may it please the court! Tonet, of all men! The peopl

a preacher! That puddinghead was proof-proof! And the certainty angered her. Instinctively, without reckoning the consequences of what she was doing, she came out with the charges th

e here, Roseta ... out with it! All you know! And

n front of it. The Rector's ruddy face had turned pale as death, and he kept biti

d, when she stood silen

e was afraid she had gone too far; and, a kindly soul at heart, she repented her imprudent innue

say. But they say lots of things. And if you want them to stop talking, I'd

let the stream run full into his stomach, as though to drown a conflagration that was burning in his insides. He stra

s. "Well, it's my affair, and so long as I don't worry, they needn't. Let them talk their tongues off. That boy is what amounts to a son to me. Why, it seems only yesterday when I was carrying him around in my arms, like a nurse. And when he went to bed at night, I'd roll up in a ball almost, so's he could have plenty of room. And now I'm to kick him out of my house. No, you don't forget some things in a hurry. Oh, yes, when things go right and there's no trouble, you forget easy enough. You forget the

n; Pascualo, in a gloomy mood, stumbling along with lowered head and frowning darkly whenever he raised his eyes, clenching his fists as

this world that I have, and that I call mine: my money, and my wife. Let no one dare lay a finger on either of them. On the way back from Algiers, with that load, I was afraid once the cutter was going to get us. And do you know what I had made up my mind to do? Back up against the mast there, with my knife out, and kill and kill and kill, till they cut me down on top of those bales of 'mayflower' that for me meant fortune. And then Dolores ... at times when I thought how nice she looked and what a good woman she was, something of the great lady about her-I don't know what-that

is tirade, a veritable oration for the phlegmatic Rector; and the poor g

turned down to the beach, leaving his sister to go on alone along the road toward the tavern-boat. But it was late that night before the influence of that disquieting conversation was lifted from Pascualo's mind. Tonet was at home when he arrived, but did not seem at all embarrassed in his presence. All a lie, of c

dried crackling hide of his, whence they issued, smelling to heaven of strong tobacco, in the form of practical suggestions and maritime prophecy. Pascualo had taken him on, not so much for the help his aged arms could give, as for the exact knowledge he had of the coast thereabouts. From the Cabo de San Antonio to the Cabo de Can

seines to shreds. Between the Muralls de Confit, the Bareta de Casaret and the Roca de Espioca, lay deep tortuous gullies far down under the sea. Tio Batiste could drag a net through the winding channel there without catching on a single rock, and without scooping up a mass of kelp that would break your tackle through. A dark night of fog! Not a lighthouse visible! Thick gloom ten feet ahead! One taste

oned faluchas, better built than they make them now, that went out with wine and came back with sugar, and were owned by gentlemen in cape-coats and top-hats! And every trip with a lamp on board, lighted at the wick floating in the oil bowl before the Christ of the Grao! And a rosary every night on board, without fail, unless you wanted something

o sailors and the "cat," made fun of the venerable tar, and tried to get him angry all the time by assuring him he was too old for the business now, and that the curate would be willing to take him on as sacrist

hore for their honest battle with the elements for bread. An annual migration of husbands, brothers and sons, this; but, nevertheless, th

the sails, pound the bottom over inside, be sure the supplies of rope and canvas were on hand, count baskets, examine nets. And when inventories were complete they

let is going 'cat' on the Mayflower! A boy of eight, who might better be at home with his mother, or at least playing down at the tavern with me! The idea! A baby like that going to sea and made to do a man's work, and Lord knows what else! Well, I'm not going to stand it, I'm not! That's

Cocking his black cap down over one ear, he began to strut up and down in front of the women, imitating the tough and independent manner of tio Batiste, and trying to put some of that worthy's picturesque obsceni

isn't coming to an end! Pascualet is just going to sea, the way his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather did. What do you want to make of him? A tramp? No, I want him to be a man of pluck, and able to do a day's work, and not be afraid of salt water, where his living is likely to be. If I can leave him a little bit, when I pass on, so

wink for nights-and the most frightful dreams! Worry and worry about your son! And then you find they're taking the baby, too. No, she couldn't stand

. "What do you say to dinner, Pascualet! Don't mind her! Your daddy is going to make t

d at the strange mechanism and smiled. Did you ever! What things people could think of! "I'd heard there were rigs like that in the world, but I never saw one before. Glad to have it aboard, though I can swim like a fish, myself, and never do it in uniform!" And he was tickled to death, at bottom. He left his soup and tried the life-belt on, laughing at his own stoggy appearance in it; for it made his already generous allowance of

e self-conscious expression on the face of Dolores. Up to his usual tricks, that boy! Probably been in another fight in some drinking-place! "But what do you expect you'll be good for outside? All trussed up like that! Never mind this trip. We won't be out mor

of the old armadas of Aragon, or of the fleets of doughty pinnaces with which Roger de Lauria used to spread terror along the coasts of Sicily. And the fishermen, too, as they came down, crew by crew, their clothes and blankets in rolls over their backs, looked like the bands of almogávars that gathered, of old, on the beach of Salou, to sail, in lik

rdage, the boats where their own men were. It was the annual excursion into the deserts of the sea, the recurring foray out into danger to snatch bread from the myster

there, knowing nothing of the world that lies beyond that blue horizon. Hunger, on the starting-line, as it were, for a race with death at the signal of opulence! Men condemned to ignorance and

, like an island floating in the distance, the sea stretched calm and tranquil. Good weather! Good weather! That was the burden of every woman's tongue, as the boats swallowed up crew after crew. With good luck, there would soon be good things a-plenty in e

s were waiting only for the papers to come down from the offices. How slow those lubbers worked! The s

such tradition would have it, and it was a test of brains, besides, to be able to say just the right word to those lanudos, those husbands whose eyes would be snugly plugged with wool, and come home in blessed ignorance of all their wives had been up to meanwhile! This theme of the wayward wife and the unsu

t, shone from the peak of every mast. The sea was catching the ashen brightness of the nocturnal sky, and boats and buildings stood out in dark outlines of indigo against a vast background of nickel gray.

rd. That would give their gibes the greatest possible range. And what fun it w

the piers to identify the teams and the men aboard them. "Good-by! Good-by!" the women called to their husbands. "Adiós! Bon viache!" But the youngsters were already at it, shrieking obscenities into the night in a tumultuou

tones began to come, whistling like bullets and striking sparks on the rocks where the serenaders were seeking cover. The greatest uproar was at the end of the Breakwater near which every boat had to pass on its way out from the basin. And when the volleys of jest would slacken from the shore, provocation would come from the boats themsel

had sauntered carelessly in her direction and finally stopped behind her. The splendid creature felt the warmth of Tenet's breath upon her neck, and her skin tingled under that burning contact. She turned her head and caught one fiery glance from his hungr

was not only the young ones this time. Grown-ups, men and women, joined in the scathing jollity. For Dolores, the beautiful, Dolores, the bewitching, had her enemies in that throng of jealous wives. "Hey, the Rector! Hey

joke too far! But Dolores showed herself a true daughter of tio Paella! She lau

y along the shore, his moon-face beaming over the varnished stern of the Mayflower. "What else have you got to say!" That bravado gave impetus to the pointed insolence on the Break

up on the stern, livid with anger! "P

bringing the name of a woman in, and his brother's