Excerpt from San Isidro People wondered why Don Beltran remained in the casa down by the river. He had been warned by his prudent neighbors, who lived anywhere from two to six miles away, that some time a flood, greater than any that the valley had yet known, would arise and sweep house and inmates away to the sea. Don Beltran laughed at this. He was happy as he was, and content. There had always been floods, and they had sometimes caused the river to overflow so as to wash across his potreros, but the cacao and bananas were planted on gentle elevations where the water as yet had never reached. Then, too, there was always the Hill Rancho, though neither so large nor so comfortable as the casa. Why borrow trouble? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.