Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/201

Rh Blanco—the White Mary, you call her, Señorita, I swear eet."

"What happened to the Mother and the Father?"

In spite of herself the girl tossed this question at him.

Gone was the "solid feel" of the commonsense Earth under her feet. There was only the deck rising and falling to the measured swell of the waves. They were borne along over a shining sailless sea, and on towards the ever retreating horizon, wafted by winds that breathed romance. Why couldn't such things be true? They were such pretty stories!

"Oh the Motherr and Fatherr," he repeated, then, never at a loss for solution or sequel, he continued in that voice whose foreign inflections lazily rose and fell like the surrounding sea,— "The man with his leetle show of painted dolls, an' the dancing girl from Algierr, and bebee mermaids, send the poor man and his wife a leetle money—oh not nearly so much as make music in his own pocket but enough to buy more goats so that they do not starve.

"But their hearts are sad. They wish to see their bebees, even with leetle tails. So they pray and pray till they wear a beeg hole in the ground before the Virgin who stand by the road. Their knees grow very sore an' also they are bent from much praying, like very old people.

"Then one night when the angels light their lamps—the stars are their lamps, Señorita, an' they fill them with holy oil, an' trim their wicks so they shine bright for people who have eyes in their heads an' do not always look down on the ground, or make their eyes blind with looking at silver pesetas