The corporal was looking bewilderedly at Pilon. “What is this?” he demanded. “I have nothing to do with this capitán. He is the capitán.”
The friends sat forward.
Pilon cried, “Then what was this plan to make the baby a generál? Why was that?”
The corporal was a little embarrassed then. “It is the duty of a father to do well by his child. I wanted Manuel to have more good things than I had.”
“Is that all?” Danny cried.
“Well,” said the corporal, “my wife was so pretty, and she was not any puta, either. She was a good woman, and that capitán took her. He had little epaulets, and a little sash, and his sword was only of a silver color. Consider,” said the corporal, and he spread out his hands, “if that capitán, with the little epaulets and the little sash, could take my wife, imagine what a generál with a big sash and a gold sword could take!”
There was a long silence while Danny and Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria and the Pirate and Big Joe Portagee [88] digested the principle. And when it was digested, they waited for Danny to speak.
“It is to be pitied,” said Danny at last, “that so few parents have the well-being of their children at heart. Now we are more sorry than ever that the baby is gone, for with such a father, what a happy life he has missed.”
All of the friends nodded solemnly.
“What will you do now?” asked Jesus Maria, the discoverer.
“I will go back to Mexico,” said the corporal. “I am a soldier in my heart. It may be, if I keep oiling my rifle, I myself may be an officer some day. Who can tell?”
The six friends looked at him admiringly. They were proud to have known such a man.
XI
How, under the most adverse circumstances, love came to Big Joe Portagee.
FOR Big Joe Portagee, to feel love was to do something about it. And this is the history of one of his love affairs.
It had been raining in Monterey; from the tall pines the water dripped all day. The paisanos of Tortilla Flat did not come out of their houses, but from every chimney a blue column of pinewood smoke drifted so that the air smelled clean and fresh and perfumed.
At five o’clock in the afternoon the rain stopped for a few moments, and Big Joe Portagee, who had been under a rowboat on the beach most of the day, came out and started up the hill toward Danny’s house. He was cold and hungry.
When he came to the very edge of Tortilla Flat, the skies opened and the rain poured down. In an instant Big Joe was soaked through. He ran into the nearest house to get out of the rain, and that house was inhabited by Tia Ignacia.
The lady was about forty-five, a widow of long standing [89] and some success. Ordinarily she was taciturn and harsh, for there was in her veins more Indian blood than is considered decent in Tortilla Flat.
When Big Joe entered she had just opened a gallon of red wine and was preparing to pour out a glass for her stomach’s sake. Her attempt to push the jug under a chair was unsuccessful. Big Joe stood in her doorway, dripping water on the floor.
“Come in and get dry,” said Tia Ignacia. Big Joe, watching the bottle as a terrier watches a bug, entered the room. The rain roared down on the roof. Tia Ignacia poked up a blaze in her airtight stove.
“Would you care for a glass of wine?”
“Yes,” said Big Joe. Before he had finished his first glass; Big Joe’s eyes had refastened themselves on the jug. He drank three glasses before he consented to say a word, and before the wolfishness went out of his eyes.
Tia Ignacia had given her new jug of wine up for lost. She drank with him as the only means to preserve a little of it to her own use. It was only when the fourth glass of wine was in his hands that Big Joe relaxed and began to enjoy himself.
“This is not Torrelli’s wine,” he said.
“No, I get it from an Italian lady who is my friend.» She poured out another glass.
The early evening came. Tia Ignacia lighted a kerosene lamp and put some wood in the fire. As long as the wine must go, it must go, she thought. Her eyes dwelt on the huge frame of Big Joe Portagee with critical appraisal. A little flush warmed her chest.
“You have been working out in the rain, poor man,” she said. “Here, take off your coat and let it dry.”
Big Joe rarely told a lie. His mind didn’t work quickly enough. “I been on the beach under a rowboat, asleep,” he said.
“But you are all wet, poor fellow.” She inspected him for some response to her kindness, but on Big Joe’s face nothing showed except gratification at being out of the rain and drinking wine. He put out his glass to be filled again. Having eaten nothing all day, the wine was having a profound effect on him.
[90] Tia Ignacia addressed herself anew to the problem. “It is not good to sit in a wet coat. You will be ill with cold. Come, let me help you to take off your coat.”
Big Joe wedged himself comfortably into his chair. “I’m all right,” he said stubbornly.
Tia Ignacia poured herself another glass. The fire made a rushing sound to counteract with comfort the drumming of water on the roof.
Big Joe made absolutely no move to be friendly, to be gallant, even to recognize the presence of his hostess. He drank his wine in big swallows. He smiled stupidly at the stove. He rocked himself a little in the chair.
Anger and despair arose in Tia Ignacia. “This pig,” she thought, “this big and dirty animal. It would be better for me if I brought some cow in the house out of the rain. Another man would say some little friendly word at least.”
Big Joe stuck out his glass to be filled again.
Now Tia Ignacia strove heroically. “In a little warm house there is happiness on such a night,” she said. “When the rain is dripping and the stove burns sweetly, then is a time for people to feel friendly. Don’t you feel friendly?”
“Sure,” said Big Joe.
“Perhaps the light is too bright in your eyes,” she said coyly. “Would you like me to blow out the light?”
“It don’t bother me none,” said Big Joe, “if you want to save oil, go ahead.”
She blew down the lamp chimney, and the room leaped to darkness. Then she went back to her chair and waited for his gallantry to awaken. She could hear the gentle rocking of his chair. A little light came from the cracks of the stove and struck the shiny corners of the furniture. The room was nearly luminous with warmth. Tia Ignacia heard his chair stop rocking and braced herself to repel him. Nothing happened.
“To think,” she said, “you might be out in this storm, shivering in a shed or lying on the cold sand under a boat. But no; you are sitting in a good chair, drinking good wine, in the company of a lady who is your friend.”
There was no answer from Big Joe. She could neither hear him nor see him. Tia Ignacia drank off her glass. She threw virtue to the winds. “My friend Cornelia Ruiz has [91] told me that some of her best friends came to her out of the rain and cold. She comforted them, and they were her good friends.”
The sound of a little crash came from the direction of Big Joe. She knew he had dropped his glass, but no movement followed the crash. “Perhaps he is ill,” she thought. “Maybe he has fainted.” She jumped up, lighted a match, and set it to the lamp wick. And then she turned to her guest.
Big Joe was mountainously asleep. His feet stuck out ahead of him. His head was back and his mouth wide open. While she looked, amazed and shocked, a tremendous rattling snore came from his mouth. Big Joe simply could not be warm and comfortable without going to sleep.
It was a moment before Tia Ignacia could move all her crowding emotions into line. She inherited a great deal of Indian blood. She did not cry out. No, shivering with rage although she was, she walked to her wood basket, picked out a likely stick, weighed it, put it down, and picked out another one. And then she turned slowly on Big Joe Portagee. The first blow caught him on the shoulder and knocked him out of the chair.
“Pig!” Tia Ignacia screamed. “Big dirty garbage! Out in the mud with you!”