THE DWARF'S LITTLE BROTHER.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9813, 24 August 1897, Page 3

THE DWARF'S LITTLE BROTHER.

A Gibl's Adventcrk in a Msxican Town,

Miss Stanley was a pink-and-white English girl, very tall and shapely. The Mexican girls, who ordered out their carriages if they had a block to go, used to look upon her with amazement as she tramped down their steep streets with a fine, swinging, heel-and-toe gait.

She was picking her way one day among the vendors in the pl«-za, stopping once in a while to give some whining beggar or tattered monstrosity a centavo, when she felt her skirt pulled. Looking, she saw a tiny hand held out, aud a childish voice piped the usual formula for alms. The little creature was no taller than a child of four. But the face! It was old and withered. The eyes were sunken and so old! Miss Stanley palled back the rebozo —the hair was gray.

" A dwarf," she thought, with a little feeling of repulsion. " How old are you ? "

"Fifty-four," piped up the wee thing. Then, true to her sex, " The prieat will tell you fifty-eight, but lam not; lam only fiftyfour." She said her name was Rosita.

Rosita, it appeared, did nearly anything for a living, begging preferably, although that is a somewhat over-orowded profession in Mexico. Sometimes she sold chickens or vegetables on a commission. She had another source of income, being pensioner on the bounty of a young man—a centavo a week —but Bhe confessed sadly he made her jump for the coin, and if he held his arm out straight she might jump in vain, she could not reach it.

" The brute ! " said Miss Stanley. Bosita did not know the meaning, but she looked up, pleased. That was good, the English lady was taking an interest in her, for the expletive sounded profane, and profanity from a feminine souice indicated strong emotion, which she construed favourably.

The poor in Mexico are always hungry, and Miss Stanley, knowing this failing, took Kosita to a little one-room restaurant. The menu was confined strictly to Mexican dishes.

Miss Stanley noticed that Bosita put half her dinner to one side, wrapping the came and frijoles in tortilla*. When she came to a dulce of some tropic fruit, boiled in a syrup of cane-sugar, her little wrinkled eyes looked wistful.

'- How can I take some to nay little brother ?" she asked.

Miss Stanley asked another question : " Is this food you have put away for your brother?" " Yes," answered Rosita, in hor squeaky voice, " I take all the care of him. We are alone, and I work for him. He is locked in the room now, see," and she held up the massive key peculiar to Mexican doors.

*' Why is he locked in ?" asked Miss Stanley, as she .directed the mozo to put the dinner in a couple of alias for Bosita to take to her brother.

" He has combats with the children iv the street, and I am afraid someone will get hurt," she answered.

Misa Stanley watched her trot away, laden with the dinner for her brother. So little and so old, unlike many dwarfs not bulky— indeed, pitifully thin. It was not until she reached her home that Miss Stanley remembered she had not asked how old the " little brother " was.

She often met Eosita after that, sometimes in the Jardin, where the roses nodded overhead, and violets bloomed underfoot, and the band played softly and sweetly, as Mexican bands do. Bosita would dart from the circling stream of pelaJo into the inner circle, where the quality walked under the trees or sat on the iron benches. Miss Stanley could seldom resist the little, dirty, badly worked square of drawn-work held out by the tiny hand. Sometimes in the plaza, where the vendors called their various fruits and vegetables with long-drawn, wailing cries, Miss Stanley would suddenly hear at her elbow the shrill squeak of Rosita as she praised the virtues of an attenuated hen. " Muy gordo, nina !— take it—weigh it in your hand—it is heavy beyond belief ! " she would insist, holding up the unattractive bundle of feathers to the " child."

Constance Stanley had no father or mother, andj livingwith a liratherwho was endeavourling tp effect the drifinape of "the"richest ;.Bilvei inine in the world,'.' she wandered.unchecked through the crowded, narrow streets of the old town, with a young criada her only safeguard.

She had often longed to explore a dark street that plunged downward from the paved and civilised one. It was ' damp and murky. A staircase of stone, with crumbling adobe walls, two and three stories high. Across the street's narrow width fluttered strings of washing. The women, with their red petticoats and blue rebozos, made bright blots of colour. The men loafed about, lean and ragged. It reminded her of Naple3. The doorways swarmed with babies and dogs— poverty marching always side by side with those innocents.

Down she went. The street made an abrupt turn. At the. corner she was startled by seeing, protruding from a hole cut in a squalid doorway, several long, black fingers. They were withdrawn, and' she saw, as she passed the door, two bloodshot eyes peering out like beast's eyes.

"Nina, ninital the good mother Of God sent you, and see what gain will be yours 1" Turning, Miss Stanley beheld Bosita at her heel. She had a plate to sell—a coarse, ironstone china plate, chipped and cracked. There was a look of intense anxiety on her old face, and her wee hands shook as she drew her treasure forth from under her rebozo. The plate was impossible, and ConStance, breaking that fact very gently to the little dwarf, was astonished to see the tear 3 gather and fall over her shrivelled cheeks.

" For two days, senorita, I have not dared unlock that door," and she nodded toward the mean portal where the eyes had shone and the fingers protruded restlessly. " ' Little brother' has nothing to eat, except the few tortillas the poor around here conld give, and many of these go hungry from the sun's coming-up until the son's goingdowß." Constance sent her servant and Bosita to the plaza for some cooked food, and, while she waited, she talked in the doorways with Fepita and Lola and J a ana. They told her how Bosita worked and starved for her brother. " How old is he ? " asked Constance, 11 Quien sabe ? " they said. "la he a child or is he big enough to work for her ? " she asked, impatiently. "Ah ! he is grandote, but also he is loco, un maniatico. See, that is Jose now who glares from the hole in the door." Miss Stanley listened to them with that rapt attention we all give to tales of the mad. He dug deep holes in the earth-floor, barrowing like an animal, sometimes he escaped in that way, and then there was fear in the Barrow street, and the police, after a bloody I fight, would drag him shrieking back to the one poor room Bosita called home. She had always put food through the door to him before venturing to open it. Once, for a long time, he had not menaced the peace of the street. ■ That was when he hilled the seraw. A policeman had teased him as he peered from the hole in the door, much as people tease a hyena snarling in a cage. The mad have memories, for Jose*, one I night when the moon was big, crept softly about the dark room and, finding the key Bosita's small cunning had hidden, opened the doDr, crept again softly up the street to an adobe doorway where was sleeping a sereno, his head on his knees. The police have a day and a night shift, but one cannot expect a madman to know everything. So it was an innocent man who had his neck wrung as the cook doe 3 a ckicken'a. They could only guess what then happened. There were only the pulsing stars looking silently down and the great, calm raoon. However, it was evident he must have dragged, and worried, and teased that poor piece of clay for God knows how far or long. They found him asleep by the dead sereno, and, although too polite in the "Land of the Noonday Sun " to manacle or chain, they took the precaution to tie with stout raaquey rope Jose's slumbering balk before six of the largest policemen would venture to carry him to the carcel. Jose's kind of people are treated with deference in Mexico. So, after some time, the man was sent back for the dwarf to feed and care for, and Bosit&'s face took on more wrinkles each day. By the time Bosita returned with the food, Constance, who understood Spanish very well, had heard much of the " little brother." She declined to look through the peep-hole at him ravening over his dinner like a wild btzJßt. Followed by Roeita's wordy gratitude, she climbed to the top of the street and there met Mr Dysart. ! Mr Dysart had but lately risen from the j fo'lowing letter:— j ii Ohm Mouau.-X.ttll tethtf I »» leti&Hf

after the mining business in great style. Mexico is rather jolly. I went to the Governor's ball last night. Only one English girl there, Miss Stanley, awful pretty girl. I knew her brother, Dick Stanley, at Trinity. Won a cup at the three-mile. He's a pretty good sort. Tell Bob if he can get that livercoloured bitch of Oglethorpe for eight guineas to buy her. Look out for Tobin's foot. Dou't let the old duffer from the Clancarty stables fool with it. Tell all the ' old folk' that Master Touy sent them love and wishin" them a good p.atie crop. Love to dad and yourself. Ton*-." After Tony Dysart had evolved this characteristic missive fi°om his insides, he went out for a swallow of fresh air and to relieve himself of the strain ot composition by a long walk.

Constance was very lovely At the dance, in a faint-green brocade, with a quantity of creamy old lace. Some crimson poppies were twisted round her ivory shoulders. One or two more of the flaming flowers from her pale-gold hair. Mr Dysart completely lost his head over her -, as he had a lot of possessions in Ireland, among them a rich father and an ancient and honourable ancestry, he could afford to do so.

He was thinking of her as she had looked the night before, when suddenly she appeared with her servant, coming up from a atreet dark and deep, like a well, for already it was getting dusk.

On the strength of being at college with her brother, he began with true manly irascibility to take her to task for her imprudence. Bnt Miss Constance tightoned up her soft, haughty mouth, and, giving him the rear carve of a tweed Bhoulder to study, led him a chase home.

The house the brother and sister occupied had been Senor Lopez's, but was presented to Dick, together with a mine worth millions, several black-eyed girls, and what other trifling property Don Felipe owned. However, Dick continued to pay the rent regularly and gazed on tlie girls from afar. The hang-ing-lamp was lighted, and a flood of melody and fragrance rushed out to greet them from the birds and flowers. Dick, in a smoking-jacket, lounged out from the sola to iusist that Tony, old boy, should take tea with them. Whioh he did.

That was the first difference between the brother and sister. Dick adored Tony, and every night they pumped out the mine or rode to hounds over the sala floor. But Constance detested him, and, contrary to her usual reticence, said so. She tramped around the disreputable and filthy- streets twice as much as before, for she knew it annoyed him. Sometimes she would see him following, and she resented his espionage,

'• Why don't you like Tony ? " Dick would ask. "You know my theory, Connie, that a sporty man like Dysart makes the best husband."

"Oh, Dick! who is talking about husbands? I think that a man who is utterly doggy and horsey and takes Browning to be an authority on pink-eye or glanders is a very poor companion. To quote your 'dear Tony,' 'we don't trot in the same class!' "

Dick gave a contemptuous snort. This was one day at luncheon, and Constance, instead of tbe good cry she pined for, took a walk. She had not seen Rosita for some time, and she turned her steps toward what Mr Dysart called " those cut-throat dens."

She had never seen the street so deserted. AU were taking a siesta, even the dogs. As she reached the sharp corner, she heard a thin little shriek lull of appeal. She recognised Rosita's voice, and ran with her criada at her side into the low, open doorway she had before so shudderingly avoided.

There, snapping his teeth and rolling his bloodshot eyes, was Rosita's " little brother " tied with strong ropes to an iron pin in the wall—but his arms were free, and he stood naked to the waist, a giant in size. He had secured the key and had almost pulled the staple from the wall, but Rosita was clinging to his arm and calling for help. To and fro he swung her aa a wolf might a rabbit. He had the key in his black, cruel hands and lie brought it down on her upturned face. Then again, as Constance rushed forward with a scream, the key fell with a crunch on the little, old, grey head. At that moment the pin gave -wa*f* t for adobe walls are not strong. Constance turned with her hands thrown out wildly. Over Bosita's body tbe.madmau tripped with.a crash to the earth floor; just as he fell, he caught Constance's gown in his grasp. She fell with him, and, falling, knew the room had filled with a clattering crowd, and that Tony Dysart, smooth-shaven and blonde, loomed above all. Constance, with the help of her criada, got out in the street, where she listened, with beating heart, to the cries, curses, and scuffling going on inside. There was one dominating, awful groanthen a sinister silence. A moment of sickening uncertainty for that unemotional young Englishwoman, and Tony Dysart, panting, his clothe., torn, and blood-stains on his face and hands. He walked firmly enough, to give Constance a helping arm up the stairs. He said Rosita was dead, and he thought the " little brother " would die also, for, while he was struggling with him, a policeman had crept up and struck him over the head with a heavy, iron bar.

** Here we are at the Casa Stanley," she said, as they stopped before the carved doora. " Come in. Diok will want to see you. He can thank you better than I."

"No one can thank rae like you," Tony replied. " And I must go to the hotel. This arm of mine pains a little. No, not broken," he answered, trying to smile, " but • little brother ' wrenched it a trifle."

Constance, however, would not accept his easy assurance that it was all right. '• You mnst come in, Dick will want you."

"Do you want mc, though ? " She did not answer that; but, as she let the knocker fall, turned with tears in her eyes. " Will you come, Tony ? " " I will come," he insisted, " if you want mc." The big doors swung open. " I want you," she said, slowly. And the doors clanged behind them. — Edith Wagner, in the Argonaut.