Does your dad
still wear a conical-crowned sombrero, bell-shaped trousers, bolero
jacket, and all that sort of thing?"
"No, sir. The original Mike insisted upon wearing regular trousers and
hats. He had all of the prejudices of his race, and regarded folks who
did things differently from him as inferior people. He was a lieutenant
on a British sloop-of-war that was wrecked on the coast of San Marcos
County in the early 'Forties. All hands were drowned, with the exception
of my grandfather, who was a very contrary man. He swam ashore and
strolled up to the hacienda of the Rancho Palomar, arriving just before
luncheon. What with a twenty-mile hike in the sun, he was dry by the
time he arrived, and in his uniform, although somewhat bedraggled, he
looked gay enough to make a hit with my great-grandfather Noriaga, who
invited him to luncheon and begged him to stay a while. Michael Joseph
liked the place; so he stayed. You see, there were thousands of horses
on the ranch and, like all sailors, he had equestrian ambitions."
"Great snakes! It must have been a sizable place."
"It was. The original Mexican grant was twenty leagues square."
"I take it, then, that the estate has dwindled in size."
"Oh, yes, certainly. My great-grandfather Noriaga, Michael Joseph I, and
Michael Joseph II shot craps with it, and bet it on horse-races, and gave
it away for wedding-doweries, and, in general, did their little best to
put the Farrel posterity out in the mesquite with the last of the Mission
Indians.
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