"Juan Can is growing very impatient about the sheep-shearing,"
said the Senora. "I suppose you are still of the same mind about it,
Felipe,-- that it is better to wait till Father Salvierderra comes? As
the only chance those Indians have of seeing him is here, it would
seem a Christian duty to so arrange it, if it be possible; but Juan is
very restive. He is getting old, and chafes a little, I fancy, under
your control. He cannot forget that you were a boy on his knee.
Now I, for my part, am like to forget that you were ever anything
but a man for me to lean on."
Felipe turned his handsome face toward his mother with a beaming
smile of filial affection and gratified manly vanity. "Indeed, my
mother, if I can be sufficient for you to lean on, I will ask nothing
more of the saints;" and he took his mother's thin and wasted little
hands, both at once, in his own strong right hand, and carried them
to his lips as a lover might have done. "You will spoil me,
mother," he said, "you make me so proud."
"No, Felipe, it is I who am proud," promptly replied the mother;
"and I do not call it being proud, only grateful to God for having
given me a son wise enough to take his father's place, and guide
and protect me through the few remaining years I have to live.
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