At the end of a week the little adobe house was not only rendered habitable, but was even made picturesque by clean white curtains at its barred windows, and some bright, half-Moorish coloring of beams and rafters.Nearly the whole ground floor was given up to the saloon of the tienda, which consisted of a small counter at one side, containing bottles and glasses, and another, flanking it, with glass cases, containing cigars, pipes, and tobacco, while the centre of the room was given up to four or five small restaurant tables.The staff of Jovita was no longer limited to Sanchicha, but had been augmented by a little old man of indefinite antiquity who resembled an Aztec idol, and an equally old Mexican, who looked not unlike a brown-tinted and veined tobacco leaf himself, and might have stood for a sign.But the genius of the place, its omnipresent and all-pervading goddess, was Jovita! Smiling, joyous, indefatigable in suavity and attention; all-embracing in her courtesies; frank of speech and eye; quick at repartee and deftly handling the slang of the day and the locality with a childlike appreciation and an infantine accent that seemed to redeem it from vulgarity or unfeminine boldness! Few could resist the volatile infection of her presence.A smile was the only tribute she exacted, and good-humor the rule laid down for her guests.If it occasionally required some mental agility to respond to her banter, a Californian gathering was, however, seldom lacking in humor.Yet she was always the principal performer to an admiring audience.Perhaps there was security in this multitude of admirers; perhaps there was a saving grace in this humorous trifling.The passions are apt to be serious and solitary, and Jovita evaded them with a jest,--which, if not always delicate or witty, was effective in securing the laughter of the majority and the jealousy of none.
At the end of the week another peculiarity was noticed.There was a perceptible increase of the Mexican population, who had always hitherto avoided Buckeye.On Sunday an Irish priest from El Pasto said mass in a patched-up corner of the old Mission ruin opposite Rollinson's Ford.A few lounging "Excelsior" boys were equally astonished to see Jovita's red rose crest and black mantilla glide by, and followed her unvarying smile and jesting salutation up to the shadow of the crumbling portal.At vespers nearly all Buckeye, hitherto virtuously skeptical and good-humoredly secure in Works without Faith, made a point of attending; it was alleged by some to see if Jovita's glossy Indian-inky eyes would suffer aberration in her devotions.But the rose-crested head was never lifted from the well-worn prayer-book or the brown hands which held a certain poor little cheap rosary like a child's string of battered copper coins.
Buckeye lounged by the wall through the service with respectful tolerance and uneasy shifting legs, and came away.But the apparently simple event did not end there.It was unconsciously charged with a tremendous import to the settlement.For it was discovered the next day by Mrs."Bob" Carpenter and Nan Shuttleworth that the Methodist Church at Fiddletown was too far away, and Buckeye ought to have a preacher of its own.Seats were fitted up in the loft of Carpenter's store-house, where the Reverend Henry McCorkle held divine service, and instituted a Bible class.At the end of two weeks it appeared that Jovita's invasion--which was to bring dissipation and ruin to Buckeye--had indirectly brought two churches! A chilling doubt like a cold mist settled along the river.As the two rival processions passed on the third Sunday, Jo Bateman, who had been in the habit of reclining on that day in his shirtsleeves under a tree, with a novel in his hand, looked gloomily after them.Then knocking the ashes from his pipe, he rose, shook hands with his partners, said apologetically that he had lately got into the habit of RESPECTING THE SABBATH, and was too old to change again, and so shook the red dust of Buckeye from his feet and departed.
As yet there had not been the slightest evidence of disorderly conduct on the part of the fair proprietress of the tienda, nor her customers, nor any drunkenness or riotous disturbance that could be at all attributed to her presence.There was, it is true, considerable hilarity, smoking, and some gambling there until a late hour, but this could not be said to interfere with the rest and comfort of other people.A clue to the mystery of so extraordinary a propriety was given by Jovita herself.One day she walked into Parks' Emporium and demanded an interview with the proprietor.
"You have made the rules for thees Booki?""Yes--that is--I and my friends have."
"And when one shall not have mind the rule--when one have say, 'No!
damn the rule,' what shall you make to him? Shall you aprison him?"Mr.Parks hastened to say with a superior, yet engaging smile that it never had been necessary, as the rules were obligatory upon the honor and consent of all--and were never broken."Except," he added, still more engagingly, "she would remember, in her case--with their consent."
"And your caballeros break not the rules?""No."
