A Changed Devil

Babe Espinosa was the only daughter of Gavina Espinosa, whose wife the saints had called early, and her place had been supplied by a woman whona Babe had been tanght to cali Aunt Tinto. The Espinosas kept a small Mexican restaurant on Santa Lucia street, where tortillas, enchiladas, tamales, red wine aud other hot stuffs were attractions. Babe had been brought up in the restaurant and in the street - in the gutter, if that was out of Aunt Tinto's way - though she had a faint brance of a yard around an oíd adobe, where there were myrtle with big bino blossoms and brokeu borders of gaudy flowers, and thinking of tbe adobe she thought of tbe myrtle, and thinking of the myrtle she saw it on a grave in a place where there were many thin, wooden crosses, soine of them always leaning over with a promise to join those that had lain down like the sleepen She bad been christened Maria, but after some years and some slips she had repudiated the name as too commonplace for her and had assumed the name of her innocence because of the travesty it was. "Marias are thicker than virgins, " said Babe, whereat her followers lauched. These were all voung men. Women did not like Babe and she did not like women. Babe was wiry, square shouldered and slim waisted. She attracted attention wherever she went. Everything she did was done with this in the vista, and she would have succeedeö had she only posed as propriety. The conformatiou of her supraorbital región caused the other Marías to acense her of the evil eye. Her hair, worn old style, parted in the middle and carried down over her ears, was black and only less coarse than the mane of a mustang, and lier hair and eyes would have been observed in any aggregation. Babe had a familiar, one Vico Eottanzi, the hunchbaek of the Pocket. The Pocket was a haunt of ill repute, a cluster of old, low tenements in the center of a block where there were houses facing the sidewaik 111 the regulation civic way. Vico was tall for a hunchback, owing to bis very long legs. Babe was so strong that she could put a hand uuder either huuip aud lift Vico about, while his long legs dangled like a rag doll's. Through all the streets and alleys of the town the odd looking pair went at will and at all hours. "The devil aud the devil's own, " Babe said of them, and the Marias said, spite of her sex, the devil was Babe. Often tbey passed oíd Mateo Tiveros and his tamale stand. Sometimes they flouted the old man. Sometimes they wheedled him out of a tamalo hv ises of sweet yerba santa, sometimes secured it by inere bold banter, but one night late, when there was no moon and old Mateo's redlantern, lowand smoky, cast alight thatwould hardly have done for aphotographer's darkroom and Babe and Vico were bold with bad wine, a whiia strook Babe to upset old Mateo and his outfit. A whisper to Vico won him to the scherne, and in a few twinklings tl ie lantern oil had spread itself a la mayonnaise upon the outer husks of the few tamales remaining iu the steamer. To Babe's surprise Vico lay in the mayonnaise, and she found the night air cool upou her spine, for old Mateo had disposed of Vico with a single left hander and with a stxoke of a sharp knife had ripped Babe's clothing from neck to waist. Babe wet her dress skirt at thü fountain, tore off Vico's collar, opened his shirt and mopped his face, neek and breast till consciousness returned. Then she took off his coat, threw it around her shoulders, buttoned one button, got Vico on his feet and half led, half carried him home aud put him to bed. Shethoughtof Bmelling saltsfor Vico and began to runimage for a green bottle with an oroide top that had once held some. Not finding it in one place, she looked in another, when, feeling somethiñg un usual in the oíd zinc trunk, she drew it forth and shuddered till the split clothing slipped down ou her tawny shoulders as she saw a wooden cross with au ivory figure in fixed contortion upon it. Then she remembered that once upon a time she had stood by an old chest when her father found the crucifix, and he, too, had trem bied. "Who is it?" she had asked. "One Jesus," her father had said. "He was your grandmother's. He is a dead man, and the dead are as earth and air and water. I will have nothing of this Jesus." He threw the Jesus in the strong box, then heaped clothing upon it and jumped in and stainped upon it. Why had he not thrown it away? Another day she had nieant to do so, for she smothered when she thought of that yellow, hurt looking man, bleeding and nailed and trampled under the clotbing in the tight box. She had gone with creeping flesh and got him out. Why had she not thrown him away? Why had she forgotten him? Strange it seemed to her, that moan of Vico's at that moment, "Jesús, rnercy - my Je6us, niercy - ïay poor head. ' ' Her jrraiidmotber had kept Jesus by her. Had he done soinetbmg for her? Would he do somethiug for Vico? She could not bear to look at hini even in the dim light, but she laid him on Vico's breast and took Vico's hands and put them npon him' Babe could not breathe. Her face burued. Her bare breast burned. She feit her way to the back porch, heavily overhuug by flowering bean and balsam vines, but the night air did not cool her, though her clothing had slipped off her arrns aud lallen down from her belt, and her wet skirts clung to hei limbs. Her father sat there in a low, wide rocker - her father, stupid with heavy food and sour wine - and another form was coming up the black adobe walk. It was not mist only nor shadow nor cloud, yet Babe knew not what else to cali it, and it came to the railing and stood without and spoke to him, her father, "ïhe step is fallen, husband, and the porch is falling with the thick vine, and my child is fallen. ' ' "What business is it of yours?" replied Gavina Espinosa with sullen bravado. Then he burst out wrathfully : "By God, in the course of nature you have no right to be here. You ar dead and useless. " "Dead? I am not dead," said the mist. "Death frees us. Death resta us. Death soothes pain, but I am boud and weary and I suffer. ' ' "Anyhow, your grave is over tbere, flat lindar the niyrtlt). " "Ah," said the mist, "I didnot kiiow what I now pereeive. I am dead, praised be God, and he is God, and now tliat you have cast me out aud told me there is no bond between you and me I am indeed free aud my grave is over there, but not flat under the ïnyrtle. Don't you remember I asked you not to pat it dowu? Aud it has never fallen. Lift the myrtle and you will see. I go to my grave. The earth is calm and soft and kindly. Nature has made it so. Teil ray daughter that I went to my grave. " In the gray of morning Babe carne to herself in the old porch. She looked for her father. He was not there, neither was the wide rocker. Had they really been there? Babe lay and thought. When she got up, she was a changed woman. She bathed Vico's face and hands. He ccrald not rise. She brcraght breakfast f or hini and served it with the only pure wowauly tenderness that had ever been spontaneous with her. Vico ate and af terward slept. She mothered hira all day. He did not understand Babe's new whim. Late in the afternoon he rose and dressed. wondering what her evening niood would be. She would not let hini go till he had eaten food brought with her new grace. They ate together, and when he feit new again and wholly well fed and comfortable he put his arms around Babe and kissed her. She put her arrns around him and kissed him, too, as a good woman might have done. "I am going to be good, Vico," she said. Vico had feit her strength. when she was bad to him, aud he was not ill pleased. "Let's both be good, Vico," she went on. "Let's go to the priest aud be married. " Vico was so much astounded that he took her arms frorn around him. He looked at her. Yes, she meant it. Vico was as much aa inheritance as any one of bis traits. He was the product of an ancestry of inconstant men. Vico laughed. That the accustomed anger did not blaze from her eyes made bini laugh consumedly, and when a tear stole down her cheek the situation became amusing beyond all things. Vico laughed. The echoes of his evil mirth carne back to the grieving wonian as he went down the Street to teil his boon companions of Babe's latest rnadness.