On the Colonel's desk the little revolving calendar was set at "December 25th," and the letters were in red ink, showing by this that it was a feast day. The Colonel was writing, and evidently did not notice a little figure clad in a long linen coat standing behind his chair waiting a chance to speak. He wrote on and on, until Francisco's patience was exhausted and he coughed warningly.

"Not much of a soldier, NiÑo! A soldier must have patience if it is to wait all day."

But Francisco was used by now to his uncle's chaffing; indeed, they were close friends and Francisco went right to the heart of his errand.

"Uncle, it's El dia de Navidad."

"Why, so it is," looking at the calendar. "I had forgotten it was Christmas. We've so many feast days one cannot keep the run of all, and I can scarcely remember my own patron saint's day. If it wasn't such a well known and widely observed one, it would often pass before I knew it."

Francisco laughed. "Why, Uncle Juan, you couldn't miss St. John's day unless you were deaf and blind. They make such a noise and have such huge bonfires always. For weeks before it comes the children save every piece of wood and paper, and last St. John's night I stood on our roof and looked over the city. My! how pretty it looked; the whole city seemed on fire; for nearly every street had half a dozen bonfires. I wish my saint was as popular. But to-day, I want to ask if I may go home just for a little while."

"Indeed you may, lad, whenever you choose."

"Well, you see, to-day, I've a special errand, Uncle; I've been making a pesebre for Elena and it's finished now just in time. I would like to go and set it up."

"Let me see it," said the Colonel.

"Oh, it's fine, Uncle. I've got twenty-eight figures and the paint is dry on every one of them. I worked all day yesterday in the back patio, and JosÉ, the portero, helped me cut out the camels. He said mine looked like giraffes." And the boy began to lay them out on the desk, tenderly lifting each one as though they were alive and breathing.

As each little representation took its place in the long row the Colonel's face grew tender. He dared not smile at their crudity for behind the rough, unskilful carving, he saw the ideal that had been in the carver's mind. He was seeing some new thing each day in the little fellow's character that made him love him more; and when they were all placed formally together, he drew the little linen coated figure into the circle of his arm and together they discussed the merits of each wee wooden figure.

"NiÑo, we will go together! That's what we'll do," he exclaimed almost boyishly. "I am tired of these long army statistics, so let us go inmediatamente."

A span of Argentine thoroughbreds took them this time, for the Colonel was a genuine lover of horse flesh, and he owned several of the finest in the country. It is said that an Argentine will lavish as much care on his favourite horse as a mother will upon her child; and these two, Saturnino and Val-d'Or, were the pride of his heart.

"This pair, Francisco," he began, as they took their seats in the open victoria, and the silver studded harness tinkled as the splendid horses started off; "this pair are to be taken abroad next month with my two trotters, Benita and Malacaro. Our horses are attracting more and more attention in Europe as they see the fine specimens our stables are sending there.

"I shall enter them on the English turf, and I am ready to hazard their price that they will come back, at least one of them, with a blue riband. At any rate, I am sure there are no finer appearing horses anywhere than these; but all of our horses are good to look at. Of course, I except those miserable cab horses; they are a disgrace to their name, and should be called sheep."

Thus he chatted on, full of his subject, until they reached Francisco's home. They found Guillerma and her mother away. They had gone to celebrate mass and Elena, with the one servienta, was alone in the house.

"You entertain her, Uncle Juan, while I erect the pesebre," whispered Francisco.

So the gray haired soldier took Elena on his knee and told her the story of a little girl who was lost in a forest and of the convention of animals that met to discuss her fate. He put most eloquent speeches into the jaws and beaks of the different birds and animals, such as the deer, the puma, the ostrich, the jaguar, and many others. Elena's eyes were wide as the big bear growled out his belief that she should be cut up into half kilo bits, and divided among them; but just then Francisco entered the room and asked them to come into the dining-room where Estrella, the servant, was preparing mÁte.

As they entered the comedor[10] Elena spied the manger with its surrounding images in the corner, on the floor.

"Que hermosa! Que linda!"[11] she cried, clasping her hands in ecstasy. "Only yesterday did I tell EncarnaciÓn, when she came to bring me Christmas cakes full of almonds and raisins, that we should have no pesebre. She is to have one of ivory that cost a small fortune, but I had rather have this. Oh! it is so beautiful! Who could have brought it? Who could have put it here?" and she looked up inquiringly, first at her uncle and then at her brother. Uncle Juan's face pleaded "not guilty" but Francisco's was so beamingly tell-tale that she flew to him and embraced him and kissed him over and over again.

When each figure had been carefully inspected and discussed Uncle Juan proposed a ride, this time behind his favourite horses. As they entered the house on their return he was pleased to see a faint colour on Elena's face and a brighter look in her eyes.

Thus the days passed, swiftly enough; New Year's with its fireworks and noisy crowds of celebrating peons, and at last came twelfth night.

Elena awoke on the sixth of January feverishly expectant. Surely, after having set up such a lovely pesebre, the Three Kings would not forget her. An excursion into the dining-room proved their faithfulness, for there they stood—three smartly covered camels, and three wee kings, bowing before the tiny babe in the manger.

Around the room were the gifts they had brought to her. A toy piano, a wonderful French doll with a trunk full of clothes, a few picture-books and a china tea set. She was still admiring them when Francisco arrived; he was dressed for travelling and was quite excited, but Elena could not notice that, so absorbed was she in her toys and doll.

"See this muÑeca,[12] Francisco, mio! Did you ever see such glorious blue eyes, just like the English SeÑora's on the corner. Why, you act as though you had seen them before, Francisco, are you not surprised to see so many?" exclaimed Elena, impatient that he would not kneel with her among her gifts.

"They are beautiful, Elena, every one of them. But I am in a great haste for Uncle Juan and I are leaving from the Retiro Station in half an hour. The servant, JosÉ, has taken our trunks and large bags ahead, and I stopped here to bid you all goodbye, as Uncle Juan had another errand to do on his way down. We go a day earlier than we had planned in order that we may stop over for a day and night in Rosario. I am glad, Elena, that your gifts are so lovely, and if I were not in such a hurry, we would have a long play together. But I shall write to you, all of you;" and he embraced them, each one, mother and two sisters, hastily, not trusting himself to prolong the goodbye.

The EstaciÓn Retiro was full of a holiday crowd, for it was early morning. JosÉ was awaiting him, and they stood watching the long trains of cars coming and going, discharging their loads into the long sheds, and swallowing up another one and puffing out again. Francisco's knowledge of railroads was limited. He had never taken a long journey on one; his mother and Guillerma had taken him with them on one of their yearly pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, some forty miles distant, for being devout Catholics, this was never omitted. He began to grow nervous, fearing his uncle would be too late, as the train for Rosario was puffing and blowing just outside the iron gate and the guard was preparing to ring a huge bell, which announced the departure of all trains. Just before its first peal broke from its brass throat his uncle strode in, and, motioning the servant to follow with the bags, he hurried Francisco through the gate.

JosÉ, the portero accompanying them, was an Araucanian Indian by birth, but he spoke Spanish fluently. When a mere boy, the Colonel's father had brought him from Chile, when returning from a military expedition into that country; and he had been a faithful servant of the family ever since. As slavery is prohibited in Argentina he had been paid wages since he became of age, over forty years ago, but no power on earth could have induced JosÉ to leave the service of Colonel Lacevera.

He was but slightly bent and possessed the broad face and high cheek bones of the South American Indian. His skin was like parchment, and his eyes slanted peculiarly like the eyes of the Chinese. When Francisco had spoken of that last characteristic to his uncle he had been told that many people believed these Indians to be a tangent of the Oriental races, and upheld their theory mainly because of the peculiar similarity of the eyes.

JosÉ and Francisco were great friends and Francisco was much pleased that JosÉ was to be with them at the estancia, since his knowledge of animals, birds, herbs, in fact all out door life, was unlimited.

The car they occupied was a compartment car of the English type, although the ponderous engine was North American. As the railroads of Argentina are mainly under English control the English railway customs and equipments are largely in evidence.

The pretty stations at each suburb are surrounded by grass plots with beds of flowers, and the English system of overhead bridges across the tracks at all stations reduces the number of accidents.

Francisco found out all of this by a series of continuous questions as their train sped through the pretty suburbs with their numbers of summer homes, surrounded by well kept gardens. The villages began to grow fewer and fewer and Colonel Lacevera said:

"Now it's my turn, NiÑo! Can you bound the Argentine Republic?"

Francisco began in the sing-song manner of the Spanish schools:—"On the north by Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, on the west and south by Chile; on the east by Brazil, Uruguay and the Atlantic Ocean. Its area is one million, one hundred and eighteen thousand square miles and its population is over six million. It is—"

"There! There!" exclaimed his uncle, laughingly. "You may stop. No telling how long you could sing the praises of your native land. I want to tell you a few things that you may not have learned. Do you know what alluvial soil is?"

"It sounds like some metal," ventured the boy.

"But it isn't. You see, Argentina was once part of the ocean bed; for under the soil, way back in the interior of the country, I, myself, have found shells and gravel. This long level stretch of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the foothills of the Andes, that was once covered with water, is now called the Pampas; and you are now in that region.

"See that long, coarse grass stretching as far as the eye can reach; it is the finest pasture land in the world and explains why we produce such quantities of cattle, sheep and horses. You see, having this excellent pasture-land, so well watered, and a climate that insures grazing the whole year through, our expenses for raising and rearing cattle are very low. We are a larger country than we appear on the map, my boy. Why! we are twelve times as large as Great Britain."

"Uncle, as we have so many things that are the largest and best in the world, tell me, is this the longest railroad on the earth?"

"No, NiÑo, not quite that. Our railroads are developing our country at a rapid rate and we have some of the finest road beds in the world, but that is because our country is so level. Now that I think of it, we have got something connected with railroads that is interesting. We have the longest straight stretch of railway in the world, it is said. On the Argentine Pacific Railway from Buenos Aires to the Andes it runs like a surveyor's line two hundred and eleven miles without deviating a foot. But come, let us go into the dining car for breakfast; it is already half-past eleven."

This was Francisco's greatest surprise of all in a long list of the day's surprises. To eat in a railway car, speeding fifty miles an hour, with delicate china and napery, shining silver and food like he had been having daily at his uncle's table, seemed too wonderful to be true.