THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER, 



September 



SUB ROSA. 



My sweetheiirt wears all kinds of hats 

 With aigi-L'ts, puu.-i and bows, 



But the hut iHy sweetheart's sweetest in 

 Is the one with the big red rose. 



It stands up pretty on the brim. 



What wonder my fajicy's wooed? 

 It nods an J bows so saucily 



To the mufcic of her mood. 



And when my sweetheart slyly rests 

 Quite still and will not speak, 



The red rose won Id so fain reply 

 The bloom on her dimpled cheek. 



The red rose oft has swayed a "No" — 



My sweetheart cold can be- 

 But, you see, I like it so well because 

 She nodded a "Yes" tome. 

 -Delight Sweetser in Indianapolis Journal 



SOFT BLACK EYES. 



What a trivial thing will color the whole 

 of a iiiau's life! How small an incident, 

 cojnpared to the large future he has ninp- 

 ped out for himself, may make or mar it! 

 I learned all this and more one sultry May 

 day in Mexico five years ago. 



I had been sent to Mexico as chief of a 

 surveying corps to establish the lioundaries 

 of tlie t-anta Anita grant, which lay along 

 the Rio Claro just outside the city of Chi- 

 huahua. It was a responsible position foil- 

 a young man, and I held my head high. 



It was the day of La Fiesta de 8an Gua- 

 dalupe. The saint himself had been dead, 

 I undcu'stood, several hundred years, but 

 in ^Mexico that doesn't make any differ- 

 ence. The l.-nger folks are dead there the 

 more th<!y seem to be thought of and the 

 bigger a bir;;ida.y party they have. Almost 

 every oiher week contains the "feast day" 

 of some dead saint or saintess, and trade 

 and commerce are suspended to do the oc- 

 casion ju.s'.ice,. The natives of Mexico are 

 the most pere.inially pious people on earth. 

 Why, I have known them — men in my own 

 emi)li;'y--io be so eulhused over the jjos- 

 thumous birtiiday of some long dead saint 

 that they would get up in the gray dawn 

 to go about celebrating it. This morning, 

 the morning of Guadalupe's feast day, tiie 

 whole force of peons under nie had struck. 

 !No chaiumen, no flagmen, no axmen svere 

 left me. Only Sijns and Bailey, my two 

 American a^; istants, staid behind. When 

 I began abu:ing thein for the custon)s of 

 Mexico, they said while they did not care 

 even re7m;;cly for the saint to whom it 

 was dedicaied, still they were glad it was 

 a holiday ami they thought they would go 

 up stream ;;nd fish awhile. They were 

 only indifferent laymen, without any re- 

 ligious feeling. 



When I was left alone in camp, I spent 

 a short time on my field notes, when it 

 came over me that I was wasting the day. 

 Just outside the chaparral the river was 

 laughing and murmuring in the open. It 

 seemed to ask me to walk beside it. The 

 adobe huts along its banks were tenant- 

 less; their inmates had gone to the feast. 



But, strange sight, there at the bend of 

 the river where the waters were the mer- 

 riest was a solitary worker, and whatever 

 it was she was doing, she was doing it 

 with a vim. A dark eyed, dark haired, 

 dark shawled daughter of Spain she 

 seemed to be, and yet she was working-— 

 and working hard — on a "feast day!" A 

 fit of curiosity seized me to know what she 

 was doing and why she was doing it. I 

 approached her with the question on my 

 lips at what did she work, and por-kay (I 

 spell it as I said it). Softly she raised a 

 pair of melting orbs and sweetly and elo- 

 quently she answered me. From her ];eply, 

 in the most musical language in the world, 

 I gathered that she would be at the feast, 

 but that she must cleanse the soiled linen 

 that lay around her on the sand, for the 

 owner of it, a gentleman who was staying 

 at the United States hotel, wanted it hy 

 noon, and tojnorrow would not do (she 

 said this plaintively). If it were not done 

 by noon, she finished most pathetically, 

 she would get no diner."?, and that she 

 needed in the superlative degree. Dinero! 

 Ah, the next most potent thing in Mexico 

 to saints' days is money! 



As her red lips told me this, her great 

 black eyes wandered from the soiled 

 clothes at her feet to the spires of the ca- 

 thedral in the distance and the waving 

 foliage of the plaza where the feasting and 

 merrymaking were going on. There was 

 a look of satiiK'ss and longing in them as 

 she gazed. Being a tender hearted man, I 

 asked her if there was aught I could do for 

 her. In a \\i;riderful mixture of Anglo- 

 Spani.sh. which I invented svhile in Mex- 

 ico, and which no one could ever master 

 but myself, I assured her I was at her serv- 

 ice if she so desired and asked how I could 

 assist her. 



The black eyes flashed gratitude ere the 

 scarlet Jiioul!- said, in silvery sweet tones, 

 "Would you sit on a rock beside me and rub 

 the shirts of the gentleman on a large rock 

 with a very sjiiall rock:^" 



Looking l)ack now in the light of ma- 

 turer wisdom, I can see that I sliould have 

 declined that job on tlie grounds that it 

 was too uuffisthetic. But — I didn't. On 

 the contrary, I accejited it effusively. 

 There was a touch of romance about it 

 that appealed to me — the day itself began 

 to appeal to me for the first time. I began 

 to feel something of the enthusiasm for 

 feast days tiiat had taken my men out be- 



