one might see who
looked at the windowsills.

On one of these broad sills Isabelita leaned, her black eyes fixed
on the bone gate-posts that she could see through the blossoming
hollyhocks. There was a displeased expression on the young girl's
face. She was watching for her brother Timoteo, who would soon come
from school.

"He must go for the cow tonight," resolved Isabelita aloud in
Spanish. "I will not go! I wish the Americans had never come to this
town! In the old days, my father says, there were no cattle notices
on the trees. My father did not have to go for cows every night!"
And Isabelita frowned as she remembered the notices about letting
cattle run loose upon the highway.

These Spanish--and--English notices were now nailed on pines here
and there along the roads, and proved a source of inquiry to
wandering Americans who saw the boards with their heading:

"AVISO!!"

preceded by two inverted exclamation points and followed by two
others in the upright position--that some Americans have perhaps
been wont to think is the only attitude in which an exclamation
point can stand, Americans not being accustomed to the ease with
which an exclamation point can stand on its head, when used in
Spanish literature.

But it was not only with cattle notices and Americans that Isabelita
was offended this day. She was in a bad humor, and nothing suited
her. Hence it was in no pleasant voice that she called to Timoteo,
when he at last made his appearance between the bony gate-posts:

"Hombre bobo, thou must go for the cow tonight!"

Now, "hombre bobo" means much the same as our word "booby,"
therefore this was not a very soothing manner of beginning her
information. To Isabelita's surprise, however, Timoteo answered only
"Yes," and, coming in, put his one book carefully away, and then
went forth for the cow, as he had been bidden. Isabelita stared
after him. She had at least expected a quarrel.

Isabelita would have been more surprised still, if she could have
seen what Timoteo did after reaching the place in the woods where
the cow was tethered. He threw himself down; crushing the fragrant,
small-leaved vines of "yerba buena" as he fell, and, hiding his
face, Timoteo cried in a half-angry, half-hopeless tumult of
feeling. The pink blossoming thistles nodded, and the cow looked
wonderingly at the lad, but no one else saw or heard him. By and by
he sat up.

"Teacher never like me any more," he told himself, his li