FRANCISCO'S HOME Francisco sat crosslegged in one corner of the patio under the shade of a small pomegranate tree which grew in a tub. He had moved halfway around the patio since morning, trying to keep out of the sun. Just after cafÉ he had started out under the shade of the east wall, where wistaria vines and jasmine grew in a dense mass of purple, yellow and green; then he had gone from one tubbed shelter to another as the sun mounted higher, until now only the heavy foliage of the pomegranate offered protection from the hot rays. All of the long Francisco might have gone inside, where the darkened rooms furnished some relief, but he chose to sit crosslegged on the red and white square stones of the patio, with his back to the main part of the house, so that the mother and sisters could not see what occupied his busy hands. Francisco's father was dead, and he, with his mother, La SeÑora Anita Maria Lacevera de Gonzalez, and his two sisters, Elena Maria, who was six, and Guillerma Maria, who was eighteen and very beautiful, lived in the Calle "El Coronel Lacevera" was now retired, and with his wife and six daughters lived in a The monthly allowance bestowed by Colonel Lacevera upon his sister was enough to keep them in comfort, but not sufficient to allow them to live in luxury, and to-day, because Francisco had not enough money to buy his Christmas pesebre at the toyshop, he was doing what many little boys of that country do,—he was making his own. Now, you must know right here, that Christmas in these South American countries is not the greatest festival of the entire year, as it is with us; it is simply one of the many that are A pesebre consists of a miniature open shed, or merely a roof of straw or bark, underneath which, in a tiny box, lies a porcelain baby doll to represent the infant Christ. Bending in adoration at the head of the wee box that holds this image kneels the mother, Mary, and at the foot, with folded hands, stands Joseph, the father. About them, placed in sand or moss, that forms the floor of the stable or yard, are figures to represent the worshipful neighbours, On that auspicious night, through the same magical means that aid Santa Claus to enter the homes of North American children while their eyes are closed in sleep, come the three richly decorated and delicately carved kings on miniature camels with costly trappings and bags of spices on their little brown backs. On the morning of the sixth of January the children awake, all eagerness to see the arrivals of the night. Rushing to the pesebre they find the three little wooden kings kneeling beside the manger, the faithful camels standing in the It was these wooden people and animals that Francisco's small fingers were fashioning. He had cut himself several times, and one finger was bound up in an old handkerchief, but his enthusiasm was not lessened because of it. He knew exactly how they should be carved, and how many there should be, for in the toyshop windows there had been sets of them on display for weeks, and Francisco had studied each necessary bit carefully. In a box beside him were the finished product of his penknife. Joseph and Mary were completed even to the paint; Mary's red and blue gown and Joseph's yellow robe were not quite In all countries on the other side of the Equator the seasons are the reverse of those on this side. In Argentina the children are having their summer holidays in December, January, and February, when the children of the Northern hemisphere are busy in school, or skating and sleighing; and they are having their winter when the Northern children are dressed in their thinnest clothing and are going away to the seashore or mountains. Francisco had just completed a wonderful set of bent pin horns for one of the red cows when he was called to breakfast, and it was Francisco gathered his treasures into the tin box, and hurried to the bath-room to make himself ready for almuerzo. When he entered the dining-room his mother and Guillerma, the elder sister, were seated, and the little Indian serving-maid was arranging a tray to carry to Elena in the bed-room. The meal consisted of beef broth and rice, called caldo and the usual beginning to every hearty meal in that country; then came fried fish with garlic, followed by a stew of mutton, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, and large pieces of yellow pumpkin, this being the native dish of Guillerma chatted continuously of the wonderful new gowns which she had seen being packed at the great house in Calle San Martin, where she had been the day before, to bid her aunt and six cousins good-bye, before their departure for Mar-de-la-Plata, the fashionable watering place on the Atlantic Ocean, a day's ride by rail from Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, as they sat thus, eating and talking, over in the great house of the Coronel Indeed, he cared little for the gay life that ebbed and flowed about him because of his high social position, and because of the six comely His matronly wife with her six daughters (large families are the rule among these Latin Americans) had left the evening before, with several French maids, for Mar-de-la-Plata to spend the entire summer; he would be detained in the city for two weeks, and then—for freedom and the life he loved. But he was strangely lonely; the house echoed his and the servants' footfalls with an intensity that made him nervous; the pillared corridors rang with no merry girlish laughter, and the luxuriantly furnished patio with its marble floors, and softly pattering fountains, He was minded to take up his abode for the next two weeks, previous to his leaving for the country, in his widowed sister's humble home, when the splendid thought came to him;—he would bring Francisco, his nephew, there with him to the lonely house. For some time he had been drawn towards the little fellow, partly because his heart was desolate that he had no son of his own, partly because the boy was developing so many manly traits, and reminded him frequently, when he turned his round brown eyes towards him, of his own long since fallen soldier father. He desired to know him better, to get closer to the lad—and now this was his opportunity; "Have Enrique bring the motor car at four, when the afternoon is cooler," he ordered, and turned to his bed-room for the siesta, or rest, that all tropical and semitropical climates demand of their residents. |