xceptional
skill. Periodically he went crazy. There was no other way to explain his
behavior. He was a clever workman, and, when he worked, as regular and
faithful as a burro. Then some night he would fall in with a crowd at
the saloon and begin to sing. He would go on until he had no voice left,
until he wheezed and rasped. Then he would play his mandolin furiously,
and drink until his eyes sank back into his head. At last, when he was
put out of the saloon at closing time, and could get nobody to listen to
him, he would run away--along the railroad track, straight across the
desert. He always managed to get aboard a freight somewhere. Once beyond
Denver, he played his way southward from saloon to saloon until he got
across the border. He never wrote to his wife; but she would soon begin
to get newspapers from La Junta, Albuquerque, Chihuahua, with marked
paragraphs announcing that Juan Tellamantez and his wonderful mandolin
could be heard at the Jack Rabbit Grill, or the Pearl of Cadiz Saloon.
Mrs. Tellamantez waited and wept and combed her hair. When he was
completely wrung out and burned up,--all but destroyed,--her Juan always
came back to her to be taken care of,--once with an ugly knife wound in
the neck, once with a finger missing from his right hand,--but he played
just as well with three fingers as he had with four.

Public sentiment was lenient toward Johnny, but everybody was disgusted
with Mrs. Tellamantez for putting up with him. She ought to discipline
him, people said; she ought to leave him; she had no self-respect. In
short, Mrs. Tellamantez got all the blame. Even Thea thought she was
much too humble. To-night, as she sat with her back to the moon, looking
at the moon flowers and Mrs. Tellamantez's somber face, she was thinking
that there is nothing so sad in the world as that kind of patience and
resignation. It was much worse than Johnny's craziness. She even
wondered whether it did not help to make Johnny crazy. People had no
right to be so passive and resigned. She would like to roll over and
over in the sand and screech at Mrs. Tellamantez. She was glad when the
doctor came out.

The Mexican woman rose and stood respectful and expectant. The doctor
held his hat in his hand and looked kindly at her.

"Same old thing, Mrs. Tellamantez. He's no worse than he's been before.
I've left some medicine. Don't give him anything but toast water until I
see him again. You're a good nurse; you'll get him ou