Mayflower (Flor de mayo)

The sea, off the Caba?al, was in flat calm, as smooth as a polished mirror. Not the slightest ripple b

o take full advantage of the perfect weather. Prices on the market of Valencia were running high; and every skipper was tr

gulf of Valencia. The sea at first was lightly wrinkled; but as the hurricane advanced the placid looking-glass

aying to all the saints they trusted. The men at home, pale and frowning, bit nervously at the ends of their cigars, and, from the lee of the boats drawn up on the sand, studied the lowering horizon with the tense penetrating gaze of sailormen, or nervously watched the harbor entrance beyond the Breakwater on whose red rocks the first s

ch boat plunging in the combers with the bellow of the tempest upon its heels. Would they make the lee of the Breakwater? The wind in devilish playfulness would here tear off a shred of canvas, there a yard, and there a mast or a tiller, till a rudderless craft, caught abeam by

long remembered

owling gale, spent the whole night on the Breakwater, in danger of being swept off by the towering surf, soaked with the brine f

ys were out in that tumbling hell, driving through the night in a floating coffin, tossing from white cap to white cap, dizzily plunging into

eeling in the black mud and coal-dust on the Breakwater, shrieking their prayers to be sure that God would hear, or, again

of golden beauty over waters that peacefully carried long streaks of foam from the night's turmoil. The first thing that the rays of morning gilded was the battered hulk of a Norwegian barkentine

h sunk in the sand. And they worked hard, those ants. The storm was just what they had been waiting for. Beach-pirates were whipping up their horses gayly along all the roads leading to the huerta of Ruzafa. Boards

ater. Strong, handsome fellows they had been, light-haired all; and bits of white skin, soft and smooth, though muscular, could be seen

alencia turned out as on a pilgrimage to look at the hulk, half sunken in the shifting sands. No one gave a thought to the los

n given up for lost. Some had made Denia or Gandia. Others had taken refuge in Cullera Harbor. And each craft that appeared roused c

, decidedly, with an eye for money, a fisherman in winter and a smuggler in summer, a great skipper, and a frequent visitor to the

l of the storm was given her, she would tear her hair and renew her screams for the Holy Virgin's help. The fishermen never talked right out to her, but always stopped at the significant shrug of the shoulders. They had seen

nue cutter came into the port of the Caba?al, towing tio Pascualo's boat behind, bottom-up, blackened, slimy and sticky, floating weirdly like a big cof

t down inside to bail her out with pails, their bare feet, entangled in the mess of line and baskets and cordage, stepped finally on some

their prey, were still clinging to it by their teeth, wriggling their tails and giving an appearance of disgusting life to the horrible mass. The bold sailor's fate was clear. He had been hurled through the hatchw

ed in company behind the wooden box that was carried at once to the cemetery. For a week tio Pascualo was the subject of every conversation. Then people for

e, but the poverty that is terrifying even to the poor, the want of the homeless and the bread-less, the want tha

came in, she was able to get along for three or four months. Then people forgot. Tona was no longer the widow of a man lost at sea. She was a pauper ever on hand with the

gh of this bawling! We've got to get out of the dumps! She was a woman w

had died. It lay rotting out there on the beach, high and dry, now soaked by the ra

p to feed them? Tio Mariano, a tight-fisted bachelor, first cousin to the late Pascualo, and supposed to be quite well off, had taken a

at the stern two portholes were cut, and two partitions were set up with the boards remaining-one "stateroom" for the widow, the other for the boys. A shelter with a thatched roof was raised in front of the door; under it a couple of rickety tables, and as many as half a dozen bamboo ta

relful. The men who used to go to the taverns in town now got their drinks right there of her. They were always playing truque y flor on the shaky tables under t

and longer, with more tables and better ones. A dozen hens or more began to cluck about over the white sand, bossed by a wicked rooster with a tenor voice who was more than a match for any stray dog that came along looking for trouble. From a pen nearby echoed the grunts of a hog too fat to breathe without disturbing the neighborhood. And in front of the counter, outside the hull, were two stoves with rice and fish sputtering fragrantly in oil in their respective frying-pans. A going concern, no doubt of that! Not a question of getting rich, you understand, but a bite to eat for the boys! And Tona would smile an

rotected from the sun and brine, lost that harsh baked bronze of the women who worked along shore. When serving at the counter her ample breast sported inevita

. The fishermen drinking outside under the shelter would look up over the counter and feast their eyes on "The Lion Hunt," "The Death of the Good Man and the Sinner," "The Ladder of Life," not to mention a half doze

. Business was getting better and better, and an old stocking which she kept hidden between the foot b

surf, and look back with welling eyes at the hen coop, the open-air kitchen, the sonorous pig-pen, and finally the boat itself, its bow and stern proje

arly morning sprees were the ones that made most money, though they caused her most uneasiness on the whole. She knew whom she was dealing with. Ashore for a few hours after a week at sea, those men wanted all the pleasures of land crowded into minutes of pure joy. They lighted on wine like flies on honey. If the older men s

ce, and especially the light wrapper she would hurriedly throw on to attend to her nocturnal patronage, lent her charm in the e

ords were over-bold she would answer with disdain. To nudges she replied with cuffs, and once when a sailor seized her

e finger, no siree! The idea, besides! A mother of two children, little angels, sleeping there behind

winkles on the shore uncovered at low tide, their brown chubby legs sinking deep into the masses of seaweed. The older child, Pascualet, was the living likeness of his father, stocky, full-bellied, moon-faced. He looked like a seminary st

and had played with the young torments of the water front with that snarling squirming brat in his arms, who would bite and scratch when anything did not suit him. At night, in the cramped "stateroom" of the tavern-boat, "Tonet" wou

snuggle close together under the same coverlet. Some nights they would be wakened by the uproar from the drunken sailors in the tavern, and hear the angry words of their mother, or the slaps she would rain on impudent cheeks. More t

rushed their father's skull, she had felt an equal tenderness for them both, as though the deadly bark were to destroy them as it had killed Pascualo. But when prosperity came, and the memory of the tragedy grew d

es soaked and torn, and his pockets full of sand! The older boy, meanwhile, now that his brother had been weaned from him, would be in the tavern, washing dishe

ng vessel! The same round jolly face, the same stout square-shouldered body, the same stubby sturdy legs, the same expression of an honest simpleton with a gift for plodding work that stamped him in advance as a steady reliable chap, an hombre de bien. And the sa

al half-finished and incoherent sentences, which were all that ever came out of that hard head of his. He had not been born to the tavern business! Something altogether too tam

e boy held his ground. Things like that didn't happen every day. And since he felt a hankering for it, the profession of his father an

, Pascualet shipped with tio Borrasca as "cat," gato de barca, for his keep, and all he might make, in addition, from t

at gorgeous things, those blue coats, those yellow oilskins, those big rubber boots-only captains could afford them, surely! But he was proud, withal, of his own helper's outfit-two shirts of mallorquin, as stiff and prickly and rough as so much sand-paper, a sash of black wool, a set of glaring yellow overalls, a red cap to pull down over the back of his head in bad w

t the fires going in the galley, so that the men of the crew never had a chance to complain. And what luxuries in reward for all that enthusiasm! When the captain and the men were through eating, the leavings were for Pascualet and the other "cat," who had been standing by motionless and respectful during the meal. The two boys would sit down on the bow with black pots between their legs and loaves of bread under their arms. They would eat almost everything with their spoons, but when scooping became too slow, they would begin to mop the bottoms of the pots with crusts of bread till the metal was polished and shining

anned a darker brown, but as good-natured as ever in spite of his fights with other "cats," husky little hectors who w

a regular waster-that was the very word for him. And he never came home unless he was hungry. He had joined the ragamuffins along shore, a swarm of wharf rats that knew no more about their fathers than the homeless dogs who went with them on their raids. He could swim like a fish, and all through the summer days he loafed around the liners in the harbor, without a stitch on his lean sunburned body, diving for the silver coins the passeng

th a perfectly good dinner waiting for him at home, why did he insist on sneaking around the steamers from Scotland, waiting for the watchman to turn his back so as to be off with a dried codfish under

ported with a truly martial swagger, twirling the corner of his blond mustache with an air that people called "distinguished." Si?á Tona admired the man. After all, breeding will come out! You can tell it a mile away. How Martinez talked, for instance! You could see from his choice of words that he was a man of schooling. For that matter he had studied years and years in the Seminary up his way; and if now he was only a patrolman, it was because

Well, then, why go tearing around with that gang of good-for-nothings, who will die at the end of a rope, every one of them!' now osté si?or Martines

r an instant. These slight favors gradually brought Martinez into the family, making his relations with si?á Tona more and more intimate. He got his meals now at the tavern, and spent most of his time there; and the mistress finally had the pleasure of darning hi

imy volumes with the corners worn down from having passed from patrol to patrol along the coast. Si?á Tona was convinced at last. That was where he got all those big words and that moral philosophy which stirred the bottom of her soul; and she looked at the books with the superstitious awe of an illiterate. Across the counter, mechanica

oking and looking, like a fool! What would people say if they ever caught her at it! Of course! She liked him! And why not? So handsome, and such fine manners! And how well he could talk! But after all, that was absurd. She was well on toward forty, thirty-six or so, she couldn't just remember. And he, well, twenty-four at the outside! But then again, and then again! What difference did

ld cudgel the roughest sailor at the slightest flippancy, herself took the initiative, overcoming the bashfulness of that timid overgrown boy; and he, submissive rathe

rifle across his knees. Even the two boys understood that something was going on. "The Rector," on his turns ashore, would look at his mother with a perplexed expression on his face, and he was timid and ashamed in the presence of that big yellow-headed youth in uniform whom he always found about the

he soldier she put all the vehemence of a woman whose youth is sloping toward sunset, and she paraded her joy in bold indifference to what people were saying. Let them talk!

periors. Why not, with a boat full of the real stuff, not to mention that stocking crammed with silver duros that sometimes stuck into his ribs as he lay down on the bed in the stateroom! To make sleeping more comf

Tona is saying something to you. She is saying that something must be done, in the circumstances. The present situation cannot last. A satisfactory explanation must be ready f

hard reality in his plunge from the ideal heights where he always dwelt as a man unappreciated by the world, and where he could dream at

Huelva was a long way off. Tona waited, with her thoughts on Huelva, a city hazy in the distance, which she figured mu

What will the boys say when they find that they have a young brother? But Martinez got cross. I

sed papers himself, and he had secured leave of absence from his captain. Fine! Si?á Tona thought that was a good idea.

had been writing for papers all right, but to Madrid, asking to be transferred to another district at the opposite end of Spain,

talkers! So that was to be her pay for giving him her last cent-and combing his hair, th

cross the counter while she nursed a white sickly girl baby, a tiny little thi