"WHAT a strange man you are, John Miller," said Padre Mateo looking at him in unmasked admiration as they walked together at the border of a field of maize, where the hurrying clear water of an irrigation ditch murmured over boulders with which its bottom and sides had been paved with infinite labor and pains.
"Yes; the barber turned a basket over my head and cut around the edges. I couldn't make him understand that I wanted it cut close to my head, or maybe he thought the shock of losing so much hair all at once would be too great."
"He could not understand why anybody but a soldier or a priest would want his hair and beard shorn away at all," Padre Mateo laughed. "It is the fashion among the gente fina, that is to say the best people, to wear the hair long, and the beard in such fashion as you saw on Captain del Valle's chin But you, my friend, you look this morning as if you had risen from a sickness, with your bare face all white where the beard covered it, and brown as the leather of my sandal above. See how the neophytes stare at you. They doubtless think you are some new species of two colors, such as they have not seen before."
"You can't blame 'em for starin', I must look like a skinned eel in this outfit."
Padre Mateo put out his hand, halting the stranger in his hasty stride, while he fell back a step to look him over with humorously critical eye.
"The trousers are a trifle close-fitting," said he, "and the jacket is somewhat too short, both of body and sleeves. But the hat is excellent, the sash is faultless, and the boots are a marvel of elegance. Taken as a whole, for a wardrobe assembled out of the odds and ends about the place, it is quite remarkable."
"Yes, I'll bet I'd scare a blind horse," Miller grumbled, keenly ashamed of his strange garb, anxious to get along to the river dam, toward which they were headed, and out of sight of the Indians busy irrigating the almost ripe corn.
"You are a man transformed today," said Padre Mateo, proceeding slowly, in no hurry whatever to be on his way. "You would have been better for a beard, brought to an arrowhead point, and for some of your golden ringlets, at least long enough to strike you mid-neck. Such a hat as you have with its high peak and broad brim, makes your clean face look like a pea."
"It's the fashion in my country to wear the face smooth, Padero."
"Padre, padre," the priest corrected him, patiently, evidently not for the first time. "Stop where you are, Juan Molinero, and stand until you have it right. Now, say it after me, slowly: Padre Mateo; Padre Mateo."
Padre Mateo beat out the simple syllables with his finger as if he directed a tune; John Miller, henceforward to be Juan Molinero in California, stood by with long lean legs spraddled, repeating the two words until he had both sound and inflection as smooth on his tongue as oil.
"Now, that will do very well," Padre Mateo commended him. "Your tongue is not stubborn, you will acquire the speech readily. It is necessary, it is very necessary, that you begin at once. You are a man of some learning, I think, Juan; you have been in school?"
"Back in Virginia, padre, I had some schooling. I could have gone to college if I'd stayed there, and made something out of myself, maybe a lawyer, like every second man in Virginia. But I went venturin' off to Kentucky with a band of boys like myself, and the woods swallered me. A man soon loses all he ever got out of books when he's amongst wild Indians and wild animals in the woods, Padre Mateo."
"That is so, Juan; even here that is so. The refinements leave a man, unless he spends the night with his books like Padre Ignacio. There is one whom no wilderness can erase, no solitude obscure. And what age have you now, Juan?"
"Thirty-three."
"That is a good age, that is a man's age, it was the age of Our Señor. You will grow as big as an oak here in California—if you keep within the bounds of the mission, and out of Captain del Valle's hands."
"I thought that little toad of a soldier had his eye on me last night. What have I done? What's wrong?"
"You have come to California, Juan Molinero," Padre Mateo gravely replied. "That is enough. The king of Spain always has been jealous of California; he is keeping it for Spaniards, alone. There is a law that closes this land to all other men, and the penalty on the head of a foreigner who enters here is death."
"The devil you say!" John Miller stopped, staring in amazement at hearing such a barbarous edict. "What's the reason you don't hand me over, then? If that's the law, how does it come that I'm safe in one place and not in another?"
"There is one law for the civil authorities, another for the missions," the priest returned. "You have heard of ecclesiastical law?"
"Yes, I've heard of it."
"And of sanctuary, Juan Molinero?"
"Sanctuary, yes. But that was a long time ago; they don't have laws that a man's safe from when he dodges into a church in these days."
"That is still the law here, Juan Molinero. You are under ecclesiastical protection; you have found sanctuary here with us at this mission. But if you put foot in the king's road before our door—then, there is Captain del Valle and the king's edict. It is very simple."
"That's a strange fix for a man to be in," said Miller. He walked on with head bent, plainly downcast and troubled by his peculiar peril. "And I've got to stay here, right here on this farm, till ages know when? is that it?"
"If you leave your sanctuary, it is very plain that Captain del Valle will carry you before the governor, who is a stern man, a man without mercy. He will apply the law without a doubt, my poor Juan Molinero; he will stand you against the first wall and shoot you through the heart."
"That's kind of a snap judgment to take on a stranger," Juan Molinero mused as he curbed his long stride to conform to the priest's leisurely gait. He appeared more interested in the peculiar phase of the situation than concerned over his own peril, turning the matter in his mind, viewing it for its unusual aspects as a student of jurisprudence might have done.
"It seems an inhospitable decree, indeed," the priest admitted, "but you can see that it is necessary to protect a land so isolated as California from the feet of adventurous men, such as Englishmen, who grasp and claim in their wicked greed all lands that their ships touch. The decree was designed for the protection of the missions, in the first place. The king wanted the great work of redeeming these gentiles to go forward without molestation or curious onlooking from strangers. It was, it is, the work of holy church alone."
"But it's holy church, as you call it, that's taken me under its wing. How's that?"
"That is another matter, Juan Molinero," Padre Mateo said, haughty and distant, as if he had withdrawn into the secret places where holy church kept its reasons for its commissions and omissions hidden away from the eyes of men. "But this I will have you know: Padre Ignacio gave you sanctuary before he heard your name."
"My name?" said Juan Molinero, his wonder widening into amazement. "My name don't carry any weight away out here in California. What's my name got to do with any act of friendship any man does me here?"
"Padre Ignacio believes you were directed here by the hand of God, Juan; let your deeds prove you worthy his belief. The moment he heard your name pronounced he declared that providence had sent you. We have wanted a miller sorely here at San Fernando, and there were no more in the prisons of Mexico."
"But I'm a miller in name, only, Padre Mateo. As I have told you, I was a planter in Virginia, and later in Kentucky, growing tobacco. That, and hunting game in the woods, and defending my life against wild Indians, is all I know."
"It does not matter, Juan," Padre Mateo declared, easy and confident in his way as a man who saw the certainty of a thing desired; "you shall do it, you shall build his water-mill. His faith in you, his great hope, will be your inspiration. Yonder is the dam, and there is the sluice that is at once for the mill-wheel and the mother ditch of our irrigation system. The poor mill! it has been a sad failure, Juan; the grist is splashed and ruined by the wheel. It is a thing we have not been able to overcome."
"No wonder!" said Juan, smiling as he looked at the clumsy arrangement. "You've got your hopper right against your wheel—how on earth did you ever expect to keep the grist dry?"
"See?" said the Padre Mateo, jubilant, beaming in satisfaction. "Already you prove that Padre Ignacio was not mistaken. If you know nothing of mills, how do you know this? Ah, Juan Molinero, you are the man! He shall have the mill of his heart at last."
"It's plain you've got to move the buhrstones off a distance, and house them against the weather," said Juan, curiously studying the detail of the crude mill. "A long shaft is what you want, padre, connecting the wheel and the buhrs by a little trick called a bevel gear. It's as simple as a clock."
"Hear him!" Padre Mateo applauded, speaking as if to an audience apart. "Juan Molinero is the physician who puts his hand on the ailment of our poor crippled mill; Juan Molinero is the artificer who shall set it turning out a golden stream of flour. Padre Ignacio never had faith in a man to be deceived."
"There's water enough," said Juan, measuring with calculative eye the lake that filled the deep river-bed and flooded to the flanking hillocks; "you picked a good site for your dam."
"It will be a blessing when you get the mill turning, Juan. As it is, all our flour and meal of the maize are ground by hand-turned stones, with a sweep that the Indians put shoulders to and tramp a dizzy circle hour after hour. They are discontented at such labor; too often the lash of good Geronimo cuts their backs when they lag. When the water is set working for us, it will be a pleasure to feed the mill and carry away the warm meal from its mouth. Your work here will be a blessing, Juan; you shall hear them sing when they carry in the corn."
"So that Geronimo feller whips 'em, heh? That's what the long whip that I saw hanging by the door is for, what?"
"They are children, wilful and defiant children, very often, Juan. You will understand when you come to know them. Now, do you think it is possible that one wheel can be made to turn two sets of stones, and produce a greater amount of grist?"
"Yes, it looks to me like that wheel's plenty big enough to turn two buhrs. But one will be plenty, I think, going all the time; it would turn out all you could use."
"There is a great demand in the growing pueblo, from the ranchers who are settled around us, even from the other missions. We could sell our surplus flour at good advantage, adding greatly to the revenues of the mission. You can see what a business we have here, Juan Molinero; from this elevation you can sweep our valley by a shift of the eye."
Juan Molinero had been shifting his eye, requiring no prompting to that purpose. His long experience in surroundings where lapse of care and vigilance for a moment might cost his life had trained him to acquaint himself with what lay about him, leaving no mysteries unexplored that the eye could pierce. He stood on the dam, a tall, a lean and hardy man, viewing what lay before him with wonder and admiration which grew as the details of the vast enterprise were gathered.
Padre Mateo, a little distance away, and lower by some feet in the station that he occupied, having spared himself the trouble to mount the dam to survey a scene sufficiently well known, looked up at Juan Molinero with eyes made narrow, watching for the effect their great possessions would show upon this man.
Not so clumsy, nor of such stolid strength as he appeared in his dress of hairy skins, was this Juan today, thought Padre Mateo. An admirable man, of balance like a fine rifle, thought this padre, who knew the use of a gun very well, indeed, although arms were prohibited men of his holy calling by the express decree of the king; a man of vast endurance, plain in the length of his muscular limbs, the breadth of his shoulders. Not the burly, deep-chested, slow crushing strength of Borromeo, the blacksmith. This man was thin of shoulders and chest compared to Borromeo. His was strength in its refinement, strength that had the keenness of a quick mind to direct it, a leaping, bounding, swift strength that would strike and spring like a cougar away from a retaliating blow.
Strange thoughts for a priest, perhaps; unusual conclusions to register in his active mind upon his weighing of this stranger from a far-off, barbarous land. But it is not unlikely that Padre Mateo was pretty much of a business man, and a man who knew the world and the creatures that move in its ways, as many of the mission fathers were. There were other matters, also, besides spiritual, to occupy the thoughts of the mission padres in those changing days.
Juan Molinero stood looking abroad upon the mission and the mission lands, its enclosure of long, grey adobe walls, raised in prodigious labor by the hands of savage man, directed thus into the arts of peace and prosperity by the patience, the rigor, the force if necessary, of these indomitable men. The site of the dam impounding the waters of the little river was a mile or more northward of the mission buildings, close against the hills; the rise to it was considerable, affording a clear survey to one who stood upon it over-looking the mission property in the Valley of the Oaks. How marvelous, thought Juan Molinero, this work that had been accomplished here.
The great mission building, which fronted upon the king's road, El Camino Real of California history and romance, lay farthest away from the point where Juan Molinero, in his Spanish garb and name, stood looking down upon the scene. This building of adobe, or sun-dried bricks, was more than two hundred feet in length, rising two lofty stories, with a breadth of fifty feet. Its walls at the foundations were eight feet thick, the arches of its few and small windows seemed embrasures in a fortress. The grey adobe walls were coated with white stucco, harmonious contrast against the surrounding greenery of vineyards and fields. The roof was of tiles, soft in their dull red, a mellow dash of color to delight the appreciative eye.
A long arcade, perhaps five hundred feet in length, ran from the northeast corner of the main building to connect with the church which stood on the bank of the little river. This passage was open to the west, where the familiar arches of monastic architecture looped in graceful diversion with the general severity and simplicity of the design. Along the east side of this long passage between mission house and church, several small buildings stood. These were of uniform size and design, and were the homes of the mission's various attaches, such as the mayordomo, the artisans who raised new buildings and kept all in repair, as well as the offi' cers and soldiers stationed there to guard against a possible outbreak of the neophytes and assist in enforcing the discipline necessary to their control.
All these buildings were plastered with stucco that gleamed marble white in the sun, all roofed with the uniform red, soft-tinted tiles. It was a finished enterprise, to the last detail of convenience for that day, and fashioned and molded in the marvelous faith and perseverance of its builders out of the very earth on which it stood. Even a fountain was tossing a sparkling jet high among the greenery in the quadrangle that cornered between mission building and the padres' walk under the shady arcade.
The village where the neophytes lived was near the church, and close beside it the burying ground where they found rest when their struggles with civilization were at end. Many white crosses in this little field witnessed that death was a heavy tolltaker even in that scene of serenity and peace.
These Indian cabins were built of sun-dried bricks, roofed with straw thatch, arranged in neat order, mainly, with a few scattering ones as if of dissenters spreading about the edges. Poor as they appeared by contrast with the white magnificence of the mission buildings, they were luxurious to a people who had roamed almost unsheltered for centuries. It is doubtful whether the earth contained human beings of meaner accomplishments and intelligence than the California Indians were when the Spanish padres came. The never-ending marvel of it is that the priests accomplished so much with them in so short a flight of time.
But to all of this, certainly, John Miller, or Juan Molinero as he must be called henceforward, was a stranger. He was so filled with admiration for the vast work that spread before him, revealed so unexpectedly in a land he had thought to find almost untouched by civilization, that the best he could do was stand there on the dam and gaze, and draw his breath in deep gusts of wonderment.
The fields were lively with bright colors where the Indians were at work, some with hoes among cabbage and turnips and potatoes, some with spades mending the embankments of ditches where the lifegiving water sparkled as it ran. Some were threshing grain by throwing it under the feet of numerous cattle yoked up four abreast and driven at a trot around a circular corral. Near them others were rendering tallow, so Padre Mateo said, in vats built of bricks and lined with plaster. In a vineyard enclosed by a high adobe wall, women and children were heaping ox-drawn carts with grapes.
"There is none of the corruption of idleness here," Padre Mateo said, pride and satisfaction in his voice.
"It's a beautiful place! There's room for a thousand farms in this valley—ten thousand, I expect," Juan Molinero replied.
"Not at this time," Padre Mateo denied. "We want no more encroachment on the mission lands. They are hemming us already, they are beginning to grumble that the mission cattle and sheep are eating up the grass. No, we do not want any more farms or towns, Juan. That is a mistake of the government, which pays adventurous men a bonus and gives every one of them a gun and a leather shield to stop the Indian's arrows, inciting them to come to California and make settlements. It is a sad mistake."
"Of course, I don't know anything about the situation," Juan Molinero said, speaking slowly, as if his astonishing discovery had left him few words.
Padre Mateo clambered up the steep embankment, his brown gown lifted to disencumber his feet, discovering bare legs and sandals beneath. He stood beside the tall wayfarer, and stretched his hand out over the valley.
"It is a fair scene," he said, his pride in it well justified; "I doubt if the earth can show a fairer. But there are men who would overturn it all, Juan, snatch these lands that we have improved from rough wild places from us, turn all our poor Indians away to shift for themselves, and bring a deluge of sorrow where there is now contentment and prosperity."
"You don't tell me?" Juan exclaimed, quickly interested in this revelation. "What is it? Politics?"
"You are quick, Juan Molinero," Padre Mateo approved, but with grave face, slow-nodding head; "you are a man who can see through a wall. Yes, it is a matter of politics. They are beginning to talk secularization of the mission properties in California, of turning them over to the state, so the work of our hands may become the profit of designing scoundrels who do not work, except in the crooked ways of evil."
"It's the same way everywhere, I guess, padre. There are some people that can't stand the sight of other folks' prosperity."
"Well, they have a long way to go before they turn us out, your mill will see a great deal of wheat go into its hopper before that day. Let us go now; you will want tools and material to begin your work. Besides, Juan, there is a sight to be seen this morning. This is the day our wine press begins its happy service—they are gathering the grapes for it now."