Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin
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is then built in one corner of the corral and the branding-irons are heated.’
‘Oh! hold my hand, Polly, if the branding is going to begin, I hate it so,’ exclaimed Elsie.
‘I won’t say much about it, but it’s no worse than a thousand things that people have to bear every year of their lives. Animals never have to have teeth filled, for instance, nor limbs amputated—’
‘Oh, just think of a calf with a wooden leg, or a cow with false teeth! Wouldn’t it be funny?’ laughed Bell.
‘They don’t have a thousand ills that human flesh is heir to, so they must be thankful they get off so easy. Well! the branding-irons are heated, as I say—each cattle-owner having his special brand, which is properly recorded, and which may be any device not previously used. Two men now catch the calves; one lassoing them by the head, the other by the legs. A third man takes the iron from the fire and brands the chosen letter or hieroglyphic on the animal’s hind quarter.’
‘Sometimes on the fore quarter, don’t they?’ asked Bell. ‘I’ve seen brands there,—your horse has two, and our cow has one also.’
‘Yes, a brand on the fore quarter shows that the animal has been sold, but it always has the original brand on the hind quarter. When a sale is effected, the new brand is put anywhere in front of the fifth rib, and this constitutes what they call a venta, or sale. If you notice some of the little “plugs” ridden by Santa Barbara boys, you’ll see that they bear half a dozen brands. By the way, if the rodeo has been a very large one, they are several days branding the cattle, so they are turned out to pastorear a little while each day.’
‘The brand was absolute sign of ownership, you know, girls,’ said Dr. Winship; ‘and though there was the greatest care exercised in choosing and recording the brands, there was plenty of opportunity for cheating. For instance, a man would often see unbranded cattle when riding about, and there was nothing to prevent his dismounting, building a fire, heating his iron, and putting his own brand on them. Then, at the next rodeo, they were simply turned over to him, for, as I say, the brand was absolute ownership.’
‘Whene’er I take my rides abroad,
How many calves I see;
And, as I brand them properly,
They all belong to me,’
said Bell.
‘How I should like to see a rodeo!’ sighed Elsie. ‘I can’t imagine how the vaqueros can fling the reata while they are riding at full speed.’
‘It isn’t so very wonderful,’ said Polly, nonchalantly ‘the most ordinary people can learn it; why! your brother Jack can lasso almost as well as a Mexican.’
‘And I can “lass” any stationary object myself,’ cried Bell; ‘a hitching-post, or even a door-knob; I can do it two or three times out of ten.’
‘That shows immense skill,’ answered Jack, ‘but, as the thing you want to “lass” never does stay still, and as it is absolutely necessary to catch it more than three times out of ten, you probably wouldn’t make a name and fortune as a vaquero. Juan Capistrano, by the way, used to be famous with the lariat. I had heard of his adventure with a bull on the island of Santa Rosa, and I asked him about it to-day; but he had so exhausted himself telling stories to Bell that he had very few words for me. You see there was a bull, on Santa Rosa island, so wild that they wanted to kill him; but nobody could do it, though he was a terror to any one who ventured on the island. They called him “Antiguelo,” because of his long horns and long tail. He was such a terrible fighter that all the vaqueros were afraid to lass’ him, for he always broke away with the lariat. You see a horse throws a bull by skill and not by strength, of course. You can choke almost any bull; but this one was too smart! he would crouch on his haunches and pull back until the rope nearly choked him and then suddenly “make” for the horse. Juan Capistrano had a splendid horse—you see as much depends on the horse as the man in such a case—and he came upon Antiguelo on the Cerro Negro and lass’d him. Well, did he fight? I asked. “Si, Señor.” Well, what happened? “Yo lo maté” (I killed him), he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, and that’s all I could get out of Juan regarding his adventure.’
‘But you haven’t done your share, you lazy boy,’ objected Bell. ‘You must tell us more.’
‘What do you want to hear? I am up on all the animal and vegetable life of Southern California, full of interesting information concerning its old customs, can give you Spanish names for all the things that come up in ordinary conversation, and am the only man present who can make a raw-hide reata,’ said Jack, modestly.
‘Go on and tell us how, O great and wise reatero,’ said Bell.
‘I’ll tell you that myself,’ said Elsie, ‘for I’ve seen him do it dozens of times, when he should have been studying his little lessons. He takes a big piece of raw hide, cuts a circle right out of the middle, and then cuts round and round this until he has one long continuous string, half an inch wide. He then stretches it and scrapes the hair off with a knife or a piece of glass, gets it into four strands, and braids it “round.”’
‘Perhaps you think braiding “round” is easy to do,’ retorted Jack, in an injured tone; ‘but I know it took me six months to learn to do it well.’
‘I fail to see,’ said his mother, ‘how a knowledge of “braiding round” and lassoing of wild cattle is going to serve you in your university life and future career.’
‘Oh yes, it will. I shall be the Buffalo Bill of Harvard, and I shall give charming little entertainments in my rooms, or in some little garden-plot suitable to the purpose.’
‘Shall you make a point of keeping up with your class?’ asked Mrs. Winship.
‘Oh yes, unless they go too fast. My sports won’t take any more time than rowing or baseball. They’ll be a little more expensive, because I’ll have to keep some wild cattle constantly on hand, and perhaps a vaquero or two; but a vaquero won’t cost any more than a valet.’
‘I didn’t intend furnishing you with a valet,’ remarked his mother.
‘But I shall be self-supporting, mother dear. I shall give exhibitions on the campus, and the gate-money will keep me in luxury.’
‘This is all very interesting,’ said Polly, cuttingly; ‘but what has it to do with California, I’d like to know?’
‘Poor dear! Your brain is so weak. Can’t you see that when I am the fashion in Cambridge, it will be noised about that I gained my marvellous skill in California? This will increase emigration. I don’t pretend to say it will swell the population like the discovery of gold in ’48, but it will have a perceptible effect.’
‘You are more modest than a whole mossy bank of violets,’ laughed Dr. Paul. ‘Now, Margery, will you give us your legend?’
‘Mine is the story of Juan de Dios (literally, Juan of God), and I’m sorry to say that it has a horse in it, like Polly’s; only hers was a snow-white mare, and mine is a coal-black charger. But they wouldn’t tell us any romantic love-stories; they were all about horses.’
STORY OF JUAN DE DIOS.
‘In early days, when Americans were coming in to Santa Barbara, there were many cattle-buyers among them; and there were large bands of robbers all over the country who were ready to pounce on these travellers on their way to the great cattle ranchos, kill them, and steal their money and clothes, as well as their horses and trappings. No one could understand how the robbers got such accurate information of the movements of the travellers, unless they had a spy somewhere near the Mission, where they often stopped for rest and refreshment.
‘Now, there was a certain young Indian vaquero in the employ of the padres at La Mission de la Purísima. He was a wonderful horseman, and greatly looked up to by his brother vaqueros, because he was so strong, alert, and handsome, and