“Crown of the high hillThat with your cool shadowGives me life,Where is my beloved?Oh, beautiful hill,Where dwells my love?If I am sleeping,I’m dreaming of thee;If I am waking, thee only I see.”The voice came nearer and nearer, and children’s voices began to join in the singing, and soon Tonio and Tita could see dark forms moving in the moonlight. There was one tall figure, and swarming around it there were ever so many short ones.“It’s José with his guitar!” cried the[p47]Twins, and they flew out to meet him. Doña Teresa and Pancho came too.“God give you good evening,” they all cried out to each other when they met; and then José said, “Have you plenty of sweet potatoes, Doña Teresa? We have come with our dishes and our pennies.”“Yes,” laughed Doña Teresa. “I thought you might come to-night and I knew your sweet tooth, José! And all these little ones, have they each got a sweet tooth too?”“Oh yes, Doña Teresa,pleasecook us some sweet potatoes, won’t you?” the children begged. They held up their empty dishes.“Well, then, come in, all of you,” said Doña Teresa, “and I will see what I can do.”She hurried back to the cabin. Pancho went with her, and José and the Twins and all the other children came trooping after them and swarmed around the cabin door.Pancho made a little brasero right in the middle of the open space beside the fig tree. He made it of stones, and built a fire in it.[p48]While he was doing that, Doña Teresa got her sweet potatoes ready to cook, and when she came out with the cooking-dish and a jug of syrup in her hands, the children set up a shout of joy.“Now sit down, all of you,” commanded Doña Teresa, as she knelt beside the brasero and poured the syrup into the cooking-pan,[p49]“It will take some time to cook enough for every one, and if you are in too much of a hurry you may burn your fingers and your tongue. José, you tell us a story while we are waiting.”So they all sat down in a circle around Doña Teresa with José opposite her, and the fire flickered in the brasero, and lighted up all the eager brown faces and all the bright black eyes, as they watched Doña Teresa’s cooking-pan.IIThen José told the story of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby; and after that he told how Br’er Rabbit made a riding-horse out of Br’er Fox; and when he had finished, the sweet potatoes were ready.“Who shall have the first piece?” asked Doña Teresa, holding up a nice brown slice.“José, José,” cried all the children.José took out his penny and gave it to Doña Teresa, and held out his dish. She took up a big piece of sweet potato on the[p50]end of a pointed stick. It was almost safely landed in José’s dish, when suddenly there was a great flapping of wings and a loud “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” right behind José!The red rooster had opened his eyes, and when he saw the glow of the fire, he thought it must be morning. So he crowed at once, and then flew right down off his perch, and before any one knew what he was after or could stop him, he had snatched José’s candied sweet potato off the end of Doña Teresa’s stick, and was running away with it as fast as he could go!“Thanks be to God,” said José, “that piece was still very hot!”The red rooster soon found that out for himself. He was so afraid that somebody would get his morsel away from him that he swallowed it whole, boiling hot syrup and all! He thought it was worse than the red pepper and the gold paint he had taken that morning.He opened his bill wide and squawked with pain, and his eyes looked wild. The children rolled on the ground with laughter.[p51]The last they saw of the red rooster he was running to the back of the house, where a dish of water was kept for the chickens; and it is perfectly true that for three days after that he could hardly crow at all!Doña Teresa was dreadfully ashamed of the red rooster. She apologized and gave José another piece of sweet potato at once, and then she passed out more pieces to the children, andsaid:—“Now mind you don’t behave like the rooster! You see what he got for being greedy.”[p52]The children sucked their pieces slowly, so as to make them last a long time, and while they got themselves all sticky with syrup, José told them the story of Cinderella and her glass slippers and her pumpkin coach, and two ghost stories.III“Where did you learn so many beautiful stories, José?” asked Tonio when he had finished the last one. “Did you read them out of a book?” (You see Tonio and Tita and some of the older children went to school and were beginning to read a little.)José shook his head. “No,” he said, “I didn’t read them out of books. I never had a chance to go to school when I was a boy. I tell you these stories just as they were told to me by my mother when I was as small as you are. And she couldn’t read either, so somebody must have told them to her. Not everything comes from books, you see.”“Yes,” said Doña Teresa. “I heard them[p53]from my mother when I was a child, and she couldn’t read any more than Pancho and I can. But with these children here it will be different. They can get stories from you, and out of the books too. It is a great thing to have learning, though a peon can get along with very little of it, praise God.”Up to this time Pancho had not said a single word. He had brought sticks for the fire and had listened silently to the stories; but now he spoke.“When the peons get enough learning, they will learn not to be peons at all,” he said.“But whatever will they be then?” gasped Doña Teresa. “Surely they must be whatever the good God made them, and if they are bornpeons—”She stopped and looked a little alarmed, as if she thought perhaps after all it might be as well for Tonio and Tita to be like most of the people she knew—quite unable to read or write.[p54]She crossed herself, and snatched Tita to her breast.“You shall not learn enough to make you fly away from the nest, my bird!” she said.Then Pancho spoke again. “With girls it does not matter,” he said. “Girls do not need to know any thing but how to grind corn and make tortillas, and mind the babies—that is what girls are for. But boys—boys will be menand—” But here it seemed to occur to him that perhaps he was saying too much, and he became silent again.José had listened thoughtfully, and when Pancho finished he sighed a little and made a soft little “ting-ting-a-ting-ting” on his guitar-strings. Then he jumped up and began to sing and dance, playing the guitar all the while. It was a song about the little dwarfs, and the children loved it.“Oh, how pretty are the dwarfs,The little ones, the Mexicans!Out comes the pretty one,Out comes the ugly one,Out comes the dwarf with his jacket of skin.”[p55]José sang,—and every time he came to thewords,—“Outcomes the little one,Outcomes the pretty one,”he stooped down as he danced and made himself look as much like a dwarf as he possibly could.When he had finished the Dwarf Song, José tucked his guitar under his arm, and bowed politely to Doña Teresa and Pancho.“Adios!” he said. “May you rest well.”“Adios, adios!” shouted all the children.And Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins replied: “Adios! God give you sweet sleep.”Then José and the children went away, and the tinkle of the guitar grew fainter and fainter in the distance. When they could no longer hear it, Doña Teresa went into the cabin, unrolled the mats, and laid out the pillows, and soon the Twins and their father and mother were all sound asleep on their hard beds.[p56]When at last everything was quiet, the red rooster came stepping round from behind the house, and looked at the dying coals of the fire as if he wondered whether they were good to eat. He seemed to think it best not to risk it, however, for he flew up into the fig tree once more and settled himself for the night.[p57]IVTONIO’S BAD DAY[p58][p59]IVTONIO’S BAD DAYIItis hard for us to understand how they tell what season it is in a country like Mexico, where there is no winter, and no snow except on the tops of high mountains, and where flowers bloom all the year round.Tonio and Tita can tell pretty well by the way they go to school. During the very hot dry weather of April and May there is vacation. In June, when the rainy season begins, school opens again. Then, though the rain pours down during some part of every day or night, in between times the sky is so blue, and the sunshine so bright, and the air so sweet, that the Twins like the rainy season really better than the dry.If you should pass the open door of their school some day when it is in session, you[p60]would hear a perfect Babel of voices all talking at once and saying such things as this,—only they would say them in Spanish instead ofEnglish,—“The cat sees the rat. Run, rat, run. Two times six is thirteen, two times seven is fifteen” (I hope you’d know at once that that was wrong). “Mexico is bounded on the north by the United States of America, on the east by the Gulf of Mexico, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the … Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519 and brought the holy Catholic religion to Mexico. The Churchis …”Then perhaps you would clap your hands on your ears and think the whole school had gone crazy, but it would only mean that in Mexico the children all study aloud. The sixth grade is as high as any one ever goes, and most of them stop at the fourth.Señor Fernandez thinks that is learning enough for any peon, and as it is his school, and his teacher, and his land, of course things have to be as he says.[p61]Pancho asked the priest about it one day. He said: “I should like to have Tonio get as much learning as he can. Learning must be a great thing. All the rich and powerful people seem to have it. Perhaps that is what makes them rich and powerful.”But the priest shook his head and said, “Tonio needs only to know how to be good, and obey the Church, and to read and write and count a little. More knowledge than that would make him unhappy and discontented with his lot. You do not wish to make him unhappy. Contentment with godliness is great gain. Is it not so, my son?”The priest called everybody, even Señor Fernandez himself, “my son,” unless he was speaking to a girl or a woman, and then he said, “my daughter.”Pancho scratched his head as if he were very much puzzled by a good many things in this world, but he only said, “Yes, little father,” very humbly, and went away to mend the gate of the calves’ corral.[p62]III am not going to tell you very much about the Twins’ school, because the Twins didn’t care so very much about it themselves.But I am going to tell you about one particular day, because that day a great deal happened to Tonio. Some of it wasn’t at all pleasant, but you will not be surprised at that when I explain the reason why.A good many months had passed by since San Ramon’s Day, and it was a bright beautiful spring morning, when the Twins left their little adobe hut to go to school.They had to be there at half past eight, and as the schoolhouse was some distance down the road and there were a great many interesting things on the way, they started rather early.Doña Teresa gave them two tortillas apiece, rolled up with beans inside, to eat at recess, and Tonio wrapped them in a cloth and carried them in his hat just the way Pancho carried his lunch, only there was no[p63]chile sauce, this time. Doña Teresa waved good-bye to them from the trough where she was grinding her corn.The air was full of the sweet odor of honeysuckle blossoms, and the roadsides were gay with flowers, as the Twins walked along. The birds were flying about getting material for their nests, and singing as if they would split their little throats.Sheep were grazing peacefully in a pasture beside the road, with their lambs gamboling about them. In a field beyond, the goats were leaping up in the air and butting playfully at each other, as if the lovely day made them feel lively too. Calves were bleating in the corrals, and away off on the distant hillside the children could see cows moving about, and an occasional flash of red when a vaquero rode along, his bright serape flying in the sun.Farther away there were blue, blue mountain-peaks crowned with glistening snow, and from one of them a faint streak of white smoke rose against the blue of the sky. It[p64]was a beautiful morning in a beautiful world where it seemed as if every one was meant to be happy and good.The school was not far from the gate where José, the gate-keeper, sat all day, waiting to open and close the gate for cowboys as they drove the cattle through.The Twins stopped to speak to José, and[p65]just then on a stone right beside the gate Tonio saw a little green lizard taking a sun bath. He was about six inches long and he looked like a tiny alligator.Tonio crept up behind him very quietly and as quick as a flash caught him by the tail. Just then the teacher rang the bell, and the Twins ran along to join the other children at the schoolhouse door, but not one of them, not even Tita herself, knew that Tonio had that green lizard in his pocket!Tonio didn’t wear any clothes except a thin white cotton suit, and he could feel the lizard squirming round in his pocket. Tonio didn’t like tickling, and the lizard tickled like everything.As they came into the schoolroom, the boys took off their hats and said, “God give you good day,” to the Señor Maestro11—that is what they called the teacher.Then they hung their hats on nails in the wall, while the girls curtsied to the teacher and went to their seats.[p66]When they were all in their places and quiet, the Señor Maestro stood up in front of the school, and raised his hand. At once all the children knelt down beside their seats. The Maestro knelt too, put his hands together, bowed his head, and said a prayer. He was right in the middle of the prayer when the lizard tickled so awfully in Tonio’s pocket that Tonio,—I really hate to have to tell it, but facts are facts,—Tonio laughed—aloud!Then he was so scared, and so afraid he would laugh again if the lizard kept on tickling, that he put his hand in his pocket and took it out. Kneeling in front of Tonio was a boy named Pablo, and the bare soles of his feet were turned up in such a way that Tonio just couldn’t help dropping the lizard on to them.The lizard ran right up Pablo’s leg, inside his cotton trousers, and Pablo let out a yell like a wild Indian on the warpath, and began to act as if he had gone crazy.He jumped up and danced about clutching[p67]his clothes, and screaming! The Señor Maestro and the children were perfectly amazed. They couldn’t think what ailed Pablo until, all of a sudden, the green lizard dropped on the floor out of his sleeve and scuttled as fast as it could toward the girls’ side of the room. Then the girls screamed and stood on their seats until the lizard got out of sight.Nobody knew where it had gone, until the Señor Maestro suddenly fished it out of[p68]a chink in the adobe wall and held it up by the tail.“Who brought this lizard into the schoolroom?” he asked.Tonio didn’t have to say a word. I don’t know how they could be so sure of it, but all the children pointed their fingers at Tonio and said, “He did.”The Maestro said very sternly to Tonio, “Go out to the willow tree and bring me a strong switch,” Tonio went.He went very slowly and came back with the willow switch more slowly still.I think you can guess what happened next—I hope you can, for I really cannot bear to tell you about it. When it was over Tonio was sent home, while all the other children sat straight up in their seats, looking so hard at their books that they were almost cross-eyed, and studying their lessons at the top of their lungs.If you had asked them then, they would every one have told you that they considered it very wrong to bring lizards to[p69]school, and that under no circumstances would they ever think of doing such a thing.IIITonio walked slowly down the road toward his home. He didn’t cry, but he looked as if he wished he could just come across somebody else who was doing something wrong! He’d like to teach him better.When José saw him, he called out to him, “Is school out?”“No,” said Tonio. “I am,” and he never said another word to José.[p70]He had the willow switch in his hand. The Maestro had given it to him, “to remember him by,” he said. Tonio felt pretty sure he could remember him without it, but he switched the weeds beside the road with it as he walked along, and there was some comfort in that.At last he remembered that he had a luncheon in the crown of his hat. He sat down beside the road and ate all four tortillas and every single bean. Then he went home. His mother was not in the house when he got there.Jasmin came frisking up to Tonio and jumped about him and licked his hand. It seemed strange to Tonio that even a dog could be cheerful in such a miserable world. He took his lasso down from the wall and went out again with Jasmin.The cat was lying back of the house in the sunshine asleep. Tonio pointed her out to Jasmin and he sent her up the fig tree in a hurry. Then Jasmin chased the hens. He drove the red rooster right in among the[p71]beehives, and when the bees came out to see what was the matter they chased Jasmin instead of the rooster, and stung him on the nose. Jasmin ran away yelping to dig his nose in the dirt, and Tonio went on by himself through the woods.Soon he came to the stepping-stones that led across the river to the goat-pasture, and there he met José’s son and another boy.“Hello, there! Where are you going?” Tonio called to them.“We aren’t going; we’ve been,” said José’s son, whose name was Juan.12The other boy’s name was Ignacio.13“Well, where have you been then?” said Tonio.“Down to the lake hunting crabs. We didn’t find any,” they said.You see there is no law in Mexico that every child must go to school, and the parents of Juan and Ignacio didn’t make them go either, so they often stayed away.[p72]“What’s the reason you’re not in school?” Juan said to Tonio. “I thought your father always made you go.”“Well,” said Tonio, “I—I—hum—well—I thought I would rather play bull-fight up in the pasture! I’ve got an old goat up there trained so he’ll butt every time he sees me. Come along.”The three boys crossed on the stepping-stones, and ran up the hill on the other side of the river to the goat-pasture.There was a growing hedge of cactus plants around the goat-pasture. This kind of cactus grows straight up in tall, round spikes about as large around as a boy’s leg, and higher than a man’s head. The spikes are covered with long, stiff spines that stick straight out and prick like everything if you run into them. The only way to get through such a fence is to go to the gate, so the boys ran along until they came to some bars. They opened the bars (and forgot to put them up again) and went into the pasture.[p73]IVWhen they got inside the pasture the boys looked about for the goat. This goat was quite a savage one, and was kept all by himself in a small field. It did not take them long to find him. He was grazing quietly in the shadow of a mesquite14tree. As Tonio had the only lasso there was, he knew he[p74]could have the game all his own way, so hesaid,—“I’ll take the first turn with the lasso, Ignacio; you wave your red serape at the goat while Juan stirs him up from behind.”The goat had his head down, eating grass, and did not notice the boys until suddenly Juan split the air behind him with a fearful roar and prodded his legs with a stick.“Ah, Toro!” roared Juan at the top of his lungs just as he had heard the matadors do at a real bull-fight, and at the same moment Ignacio shook out his red serape.The goat looked up, saw Tonio and the red serape, and immediately stood up on his hind legs. Then he came down with a thump on his fore feet, put his head down, and ran at Ignacio like a bullet from a gun. Ignacio waved the serape and shouted, and when the goat got very near, he jumped to one side as he had seen the matadors do, and the goat butted with all his might right into the serape.When he struck the serape his horn went[p75]through one end of it. Ignacio had hold of the other end and before he knew what had happened he was rolling backward down a little slope into a pool of water which was the goat’s drinking-place.Meanwhile the goat went bounding about[p76]the pasture with the serape hanging from one horn. Every few minutes he would stamp on it and paw it with his fore feet. Ignacio picked himself out of the water, and then all three boys began a wild chase to get back the serape. It would be a sad day for Ignacio if he went home without it.Serapes are the most valuable things there are in a peon’s hut, and were never intended to be used by goats in this way.Tonio couldn’t lasso the goat because the serape covered his horns, so the boys all tried to snatch off the serape as the goat went galloping past, but every time they tried it the goat butted at them, and they had to run for their lives.At last the goat stood up on his hind legs and came down on the serape so hard that there was a dreadful tearing sound, and there was the serape torn clear in two and lying on the ground!When his horns were free, the goat looked around for the boys. He was a very mad goat, and when he saw them he went for[p77]them like an express train. Juan ran one way, and Ignacio ran the other. Tonio was a naughty boy, but he wasn’t a coward. He kept his lasso whirling over his head, and as the goat came by, out flew the loop and dropped over his horns!The goat was much stronger than he, but Tonio braced back with all his might and held on to the rope. Then began a wild dance! The goat went bounding around the pasture with Tonio at the other end of the rope bouncing after him.It was a sight to see, and Juan and Ignacio were not the only ones who saw it either.VSeñor Fernandez was going by on his fine black horse, and when he heard the yells of the boys he rode up to the pasture to see what was going on. He was right beside the bars when the goat and Tonio came tearing through.The goat jumped over the bars that the[p78]boys had left down, but Tonio caught his foot and fell down, and the goat jerked the rope out of his hands and went careering off over the fields and was soon out of sight.Tonio sat up all out of breath and looked at Señor Fernandez. Señor Fernandez looked at Tonio. Juan and Ignacio were nowhere to be seen. They were behind bushes in the goat-pasture, and they were both very badly scared.“Well,” said Señor Fernandez at last, “what have you been doing?”“Just playing bull-fight a little,” Tonio answered in a very small voice.“Didn’t you know that wasmygoat?” said Señor Fernandez severely. “What business have you driving it mad like that? Get up.”Tonio got up. He was stiff and sore all over. Moreover, his hands were all skinned inside, where the rope had pulled through.“Were you alone?” asked Señor Fernandez.“Not—very—” stammered Tonio.[p79]“Where are the other boys?” demanded the Señor Fernandez.“I d—don’t know,” gasped poor Tonio. “I—I don’t see them anywhere.” (Tonio was looking right up into the top of the cactus hedge when he said this, so I am quite sure he spoke the truth.)“Humph,” grunted Señor Fernandez. “Go look for them.”Tonio began to hunt around stones and bushes in the pasture with Señor Fernandez following right behind on his horse. It wasn’t long before he caught a glimpse of red. It was the pieces of the serape, which Ignacio had picked up. Tonio pointed it out, and Señor Fernandez galloped to it and brought out the two culprits. Then he marched the three boys back to the village in front of his horse, Tonio with his blistered hands and torn clothes, Juan with bumps that were already much swollen, and Ignacio wet as a drowned rat and carrying the rags of the serape.[p80][p81]When they got back to the river theyfound Doña Teresa there washing out some clothes. When she saw them coming she stopped rubbing and looked at them. She was perfectly astonished. She supposed, of course, that Tonio was in school.“Here, Doña Teresa, is a very bad boy,” Señor Fernandez said to her. “He has been chasing my goat all around the pasture and lassoing it, and he left the bars down and they are broken besides, and no one knows where the goat is by this time. I’ll leave him to you, but I want you to make a thorough job of It.”He didn’t say just what she should make a thorough job of, but Tonio hadn’t the smallest doubt about what he meant. Doña Teresa seemed to understand too.Señor Fernandez rode on and left Tonio with his mother while he took the other two boys to their homes. What happened there I do not know, but when she and Tonio were alone I do know that Doña Teresa said sternly, “Go bring me a strong switch from the willow tree,” and that Tonio thought, as[p82]he went for it, that there were more willow trees in the world than were really needed.And I know that when Doña Teresa had done “IT”—whatever it was that Señor Fernandez had asked her to do thoroughly—Tonio ffelt that it would be a very long time before he took any interest in either lizards or goats again.That evening Pancho went out with Pinto and hunted up the goat and put him back in the pasture and brought home Tonio’s lasso, and when he hung it up on the nail he said to Tonio, “I think you’re too young to be trusted with a lasso. Let that alone for two weeks.”That was the very worst of all. To be told that he was too young! Tonio went out and sat down under the fig tree and thought perhaps he’d better run away.But pretty soon Tita came out and sat down beside him and told him she was sure he never meant any harm about the lizard, and his mother washed his skinned hands and put oil on then, and brought him some[p83]molasses to eat on his tortillas just as if she still loved him in spite of everything.So Tonio went to bed quite comforted, and that was the end of the day.11Mah-ĕs´trō.12Hwahn.13Ig-nah´sĭ-ō.14Mes´keet.[p84][p84a]VJUDAS ISCARIOT DAY[p84b][p85]VJUDAS ISCARIOT DAYIOneday, later in spring, in the week just before Easter, Doña Teresa got ahead of the red rooster. It happened in this way. Early in the morning, when everything was still as dark as a pocket, and not a single rooster in the neighborhood had yet thought of crowing, Doña Teresa woke up and lighted a candle. Then see went over to the Twins’ mat and held up her candle so she could look at them. They were both sound asleep.“Wake up, my lambs,” said Doña Teresa. But her lambs didn’t wake up. Doña Teresa shook them gently. “Wake up, dormice! Don’t you know this is Judas Iscariot Day, and you are all going to town? Come, we are going in Pedro’s boat, and he has to start early.”[p86]Tita began to rub her eyes, and Tonio was sitting up with both of his wide open the moment Doña Teresa said the word “boat.” They bounced out in a minute, and they even washed without being told, and they used soap, too!Pancho was roused by the noise they made. He got up at once and went to attend to the donkey and to Pinto. When he opened the door the gleam of Doña Teresa’s candle woke the red rooster. He began to crow, and then all the other roosters crowed, and almost right away candles were glimmering in every hut in the village and every one was up and getting ready to start to town.Everybody was going. Some were going on horseback and some on donkeys; more were walking, and as it was many miles from the hacienda to the town it was necessary to start very early.The quickest way to go was by boat, but, of course, not every one could go that way because there were not enough boats. Pedro’s boat went back and forth every day[p87]between the hacienda and the town, carrying wood and all kinds of supplies. He was a friend of Pancho’s and that was how they were so fortunate as to be invited to go with him.Doña Teresa got breakfast very quickly, and while they were eating it they heard a voice calling, “Here, buy your Judases—at six and twelve cents—your Judases.”“There comes the Judas-seller. Run, children, run,” cried Doña Teresa. “You may each have twelve cents and you may buy two little ones or one big one, as you like.”The Judas-seller had a long branch cut from a tree, with little twigs growing out of it. On each twig hung a “Judas.” They were small dolls, with sticky pink-painted faces and sticky black-painted hair, and they were dressed in tissue paper. The hands of the Judases were stuck straight out on each side and from one hand to the other there was a string stretched. Fire-crackers were hung along on this string. When these[p88]fire-crackers go off, one after another, they set fire to the Judas and burn him up.You remember that long years ago, when Jesus was on earth, He was betrayed by a man named Judas Iscariot, who sold Him to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver. In Mexico, Judas Iscariot Day is kept in remembrance of this, and all the Judases which the people buy and burn up are to show how very wicked they believe the real Judas to have been.But the Judas dolls didn’t look the least bit as the real Judas must have looked. Some of them were made to look like Mexican donkey-boys and some like water-carriers, while others represented priests, or policemen, or cowboys.Tita couldn’t make up her mind whether to buy a donkey-boy or a policeman. But Tonio found what he wanted right away. It was a “Judas” made like a thin young school-teacher! Tonio thought it looked like the Señor Maestro, and he thought it would be very pleasant to see him burn up,[p89]and so, though he cost twelve cents, he bought him at once.IIWhen Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins were ready they went in a little procession to the lake-shore. They found Pedro with his wife and baby and Pablo already there.This was the very same Pablo on whose feet Tonio had put the lizard. He was Pedro’s son.Pedro was loading the boat with bundles of reeds. They were the reeds used for weaving the petates15or sleeping-mats. The reeds grew all about the lake, but the people in the town could not easily get them, so Pedro had gathered a supply to sell to them.The boat was quite large. It had one sail and there was a thatched roof of reeds over the back part of it. It was too large to bring into the shallow water near the shore, so[p90]Pedro had rolled up his white trousers and was wading back and forth from the boat to the beach, carrying a bundle of reeds each time and stowing it away under the thatch.Pancho at once took off his sandals, rolled up his trousers, and began to help carry the bundles, while Doña Teresa and the Twins sat on the sand with Pablo and the baby and their mother.There was a large sack of sweet potatoes lying on the sand beside Pedro’s wife. You could tell they were sweet potatoes because[p91]the bundle was so knobby. Besides Tonio felt of them.“What are you going to do with your sweet potatoes?” asked Doña Teresa.“I’m going to cook them in molasses and sell them,” said Pedro’s wife. “I shall sit under an awning and watch the fun and turn a penny at the same time. The baby is too heavy to carry round all day, anyway.”“I’ll help you,” said Doña Teresa. “Very likely I shall be glad enough to sit down somewhere myself before the day is over.”“Pedro made me a little brasero out of a tin box,” said his wife, “and I have a bundle of wood right here, and the syrup and the dishes, all ready.”When the reeds had all been put on board, Pancho took Tonio in his arms and Pedro took Pablo, and they tossed them into the boat as if they had been sacks of meal. The boys scrambled under the covered part and out to the bow at once, and[p92]Pablo got astride the very nose of the boat and let his feet hang over.Then Pedro lifted Tita in.It was more of a job to get the mothers aboard, for Pedro’s wife was fat, and he was a small man. Pedro shook his head when he looked at his wife, then he took off his sombrero, and scratched his head. At last he said, “I think I’ll begin with the baby.”He took the baby and waded out to the boat and handed her to Tita, then he went back to shore and took another look at his wife. “It’ll take two of us,” he said to Pancho.“I’m your man,” said Pancho bravely. “I can lift half of her.”So Pedro and Pancho made a chair with their arms, and Pedro’s wife sat on it, and put her arms around their necks, and they waded out with her into the water.They got along beautifully until they reached the side of the boat and undertook to lift her over the edge. Then there came[p93]near being an awful accident, for Pedro’s foot slipped on a slimy stone and he let her down on one side so that one of her feet went into the water.“Holy mother!” screamed Pedro’s wife. “They are going to drown me!”She waved her arms about and jounced so that Pancho almost dropped the other foot in too, but just in time Pedro shouted, “One, two, three, and over she goes,” and[p94]as he saidover, he and Pancho gave a great heave both together, and in she went all in a heap beside Tita and the baby.While she crawled under the awning and settled herself with the baby and stuck her foot out in the sunshine to dry, Pancho and Pedro went back for Doña Teresa. She wasn’t very stout so they got her in without any trouble.They put in the brasero and all the other things, and last of all Pancho and Pedro climbed on board themselves, hoisted the sail, and pushed off. Luckily the breeze was just right, and they floated away over the blue water at about the time of day that you first begin to think of waking up.IIIEven with a good breeze it took nearly an hour to sail across the lake. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry to see the fun in town, the Twins and Pablo would have wished to have it take longer still.Far away across the lake they could see[p95]the town with its little bright-colored adobe houses and the spire of the church standing up above the tree-tops.As they drew nearer and nearer, they could see a bridge, and people passing over it, and flags flying, and then they turned into a river which ran through the town, where there were many other boats.It took some time to find a good place to tie the boat, but at last it was done, and the whole party went ashore and started up the street toward the open square in the middle of the town.Pedro and Pancho went ahead, each carrying three bundles of reeds on his back. Then came Pedro’s wife with the bag of sweet potatoes, while Doña Teresa carried the baby. Pablo had the brasero and the wood, and Tonio and Tita brought up the rear with the molasses jug, the cooking-dishes, and their Judases all carefully packed together.“Now, mind you, Tonio,” said Doña Teresa as the procession started, “don’t[p96]you get to watching everything in the street and forget that jug of molasses.”It was pretty hard to keep your mind on[p97]a jug when there were so many wonderful things to see. In the first place there was the street itself. No one had ever seen it so gay! Strings had been stretched back and forth across the street from the flat tops of the houses on either side, and from these strings hung thousands of tissue-paper streamers and pennants in all sorts of gorgeous colors.The houses in Mexican towns are close to the street-line and stand very near together. They are built around a tiny open space in the center called a patio. The living-rooms open on the patio, so all that can be seen of a house from the street is a blank wall with a doorway, and perhaps a window or two with little balconies. Sometimes, if the door is open, there are glimpses of plants, flowers, and bird-cages in the little patio.Pablo and Tonio and Tita had their hands full, but they kept their eyes open, and their mouths too. They seemed to feel they could see more that way.[p98]IVIt was not very long before they came to the public square or plaza of the town, and there on one side was the church whose spire they had seen from the boat.On the other side was the market-place, and in the center of the square there was a fountain. In another place there was a gayly painted band-stand with the red, white, and green flag of Mexico flying over it.There were beds of gay geraniums at each corner of the square, and large trees made a pleasant shade where people could sit and watch the crowds, or listen to music, if the band were playing.Pedro and Pancho went straight across the street to the market side. There were rows of small booths there, and already many of them were occupied by people who had things to sell. There were peanut-venders,and pottery-sellers; there were women with lace and drawn work; there were foods of all kinds, and flowers, and birds in cages,[p99]and chickens in coops or tied up by the legs, and geese and ducks,—in fact, I can’t begin to tell you all the things there were for sale in that market.Pedro found a stall with an awning over it and took possession at once. He and Pancho put down the bundles of reeds in a pile, and his wife sat on them. Pedro placed the brasero on the ground in front of her, and the sweet potatoes by her side. Pablo put down the wood, and Doña Teresa put the baby into her arms. Tita gave her the cooking-dishes, and Tonio was just going to hand her the jug, when bang-bang-bang!—three fire-crackers went off one right after the other almost in his ear! Tonio jumped at least a foot high, and oh—the jug! It accidentally tipped over sideways, and poured a puddle of molasses right on top of the baby’s head!It ran down his cheek, but the baby had the presence of mind to stick his tongue out sideways and lick up some of it, so it wasn’t all wasted.[p100]Doña Teresa said several things to Tonio while the baby was being mopped up. Tonio couldn’t see why they should mind it if the baby didn’t.At last Doña Teresa finished by saying to the Twins and Pablo, “Now you run round the square and have a good time by yourselves, only see that you don’t get[p101]into any more mischief; and come back when you’re hungry.”Pedro and Pancho had already gone off by themselves, and as they didn’t say where they were going I can’t tell you anything about it. I only know they were seen not long after in front of a pulque shop (pulque16is a kind of wine) talking in low tones with a Tall Man on horseback, and that after that nobody saw them for a long time. It may be they went to a cock-fight, for there was a cock-fight behind the pulque shop and most of the other men went if they did not.VThe Twins and Pablo with their precious Judases went to a bench near the fountain, and sat down to watch the fun. There were water-carriers filling their long earthen jars at the fountain; there were young girls in bright dresses who laughed a great deal; and there were young men in[p102]big hats and gay serapes who stood about and watched them.There were more small boys than you could count. Twelve o’clock was the time that every one was supposed to set off his fire-crackers, and the children waited patiently until the shadows were very short indeed under the trees in the square and there had been one or two explosions to start the noise, then they tied their Judases up in a row to the back of the bench. They[p103]hung Tonio’s Maestro in the middle, with Tita’s donkey-boy on one side and the policeman on the other. Pablo’s Judas was a policeman too, and they put him on the other side of the donkey-boy.Then Pablo borrowed a match from a boy and set fire to the first cracker on his policeman. Fizz-fizz-bang! off went the first fire-cracker. Fizz-fizz-bang! off went the second one. When the third one exploded, the policeman whirled around on his string, one of his hands caught fire, and up he went in a puff of smoke.They lighted the fuses on the donkey-boy and the other policeman, both at once, and last of all Tonio set fire to the Maestro Judas. He was the biggest one of all. While the fire-crackers went off in a series of bangs, Tonio jumped up and down and sang, “Pop goes the Maestro! Pop goes the Maestro!” and Tita and Pablo thought that was so very funny that they hopped about and sang it too.Just as the last fire-cracker went off and[p104]Tonio’s Judas caught fire, and all three of them were dancing and singing at the top of their lungs, Tonio saw the Señor Maestro himself standing in front of the bench with his hands in his pockets, looking right at them!Tonio shut his mouth so quickly that he bit his tongue, and then Pablo and Tita saw the Maestro and stopped singing too, and they all three ran as fast as they could go to the other side of the square and lost themselves in the crowd.[p105]They stayed away for quite a long time. They were in the crowd by a baker’s shop when a great big Judas which hung high overhead exploded and showered cakes over them. They each picked up a cake and then ran back to show their goodies to their mothers. They could hardly get near the booth at first, because there was quite a little crowd around it, but they squirmed under the elbows of the grown people, and right beside the brasero eating a piece of candied sweet potato, and talking to Doña Teresa, whom should they see but the Señor Maestro?Tonio wished he hadn’t come. He turned round and tried to dive back into the crowd again, but the Señor Maestro reached out and caught him by the collar and pulled him back. Tonio was very much frightened. He thought surely the Maestro had told his mother about “Pop goes the Maestro,” and that very unpleasant things were likely to happen.“Any way, there aren’t any willow trees[p106]in the plaza,” he said to himself. “That’s one good thing.”But what really happened was this. The Maestro took three pennies out of his pocket, and said to Pedro’s wife, “Please give me three pieces of your nice sweet potatoes for my three friends here!”Pedro’s wife was so busy with her cooking that she did not look up to see who his three friends were until she had taken the pennies and handed out the sweet potatoes. Then she saw Pablo and Tonio and Tita all three standing in a row looking very foolish.She was quite overcome at the honor the Maestro had done her in buying sweet potatoes to give to her son, and Doña Teresa thought to herself, “They really must be very good and clean children to have the Maestro think so much of them as that.” She thanked him, and Tonio and Tita and Pablo all thanked him.After that there was a wonderful concert by a band all dressed in green and white[p107]uniforms with red braid, and at the end of the concert, it was four o’clock. Pedro’s wife had sold all her sweet potatoes by that time and Pedro had sold all his reeds. Pancho had come back, the baby was sleepy, and every one was tired and ready to go home. So the whole party returned to the boat, this time without any heavy bundles except the baby to carry, and sailed away across the lake toward the hacienda.Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins reached their little adobe hut just as the red rooster and the five hens and the turkey were flying up to their roost in the fig tree.
“Crown of the high hillThat with your cool shadowGives me life,Where is my beloved?Oh, beautiful hill,Where dwells my love?If I am sleeping,I’m dreaming of thee;If I am waking, thee only I see.”
“Crown of the high hill
That with your cool shadow
Gives me life,
Where is my beloved?
Oh, beautiful hill,
Where dwells my love?
If I am sleeping,
I’m dreaming of thee;
If I am waking, thee only I see.”
The voice came nearer and nearer, and children’s voices began to join in the singing, and soon Tonio and Tita could see dark forms moving in the moonlight. There was one tall figure, and swarming around it there were ever so many short ones.
“It’s José with his guitar!” cried the[p47]Twins, and they flew out to meet him. Doña Teresa and Pancho came too.
“God give you good evening,” they all cried out to each other when they met; and then José said, “Have you plenty of sweet potatoes, Doña Teresa? We have come with our dishes and our pennies.”
“Yes,” laughed Doña Teresa. “I thought you might come to-night and I knew your sweet tooth, José! And all these little ones, have they each got a sweet tooth too?”
“Oh yes, Doña Teresa,pleasecook us some sweet potatoes, won’t you?” the children begged. They held up their empty dishes.
“Well, then, come in, all of you,” said Doña Teresa, “and I will see what I can do.”
She hurried back to the cabin. Pancho went with her, and José and the Twins and all the other children came trooping after them and swarmed around the cabin door.
Pancho made a little brasero right in the middle of the open space beside the fig tree. He made it of stones, and built a fire in it.[p48]While he was doing that, Doña Teresa got her sweet potatoes ready to cook, and when she came out with the cooking-dish and a jug of syrup in her hands, the children set up a shout of joy.
“Now sit down, all of you,” commanded Doña Teresa, as she knelt beside the brasero and poured the syrup into the cooking-pan,[p49]“It will take some time to cook enough for every one, and if you are in too much of a hurry you may burn your fingers and your tongue. José, you tell us a story while we are waiting.”
So they all sat down in a circle around Doña Teresa with José opposite her, and the fire flickered in the brasero, and lighted up all the eager brown faces and all the bright black eyes, as they watched Doña Teresa’s cooking-pan.
Then José told the story of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby; and after that he told how Br’er Rabbit made a riding-horse out of Br’er Fox; and when he had finished, the sweet potatoes were ready.
“Who shall have the first piece?” asked Doña Teresa, holding up a nice brown slice.
“José, José,” cried all the children.
José took out his penny and gave it to Doña Teresa, and held out his dish. She took up a big piece of sweet potato on the[p50]end of a pointed stick. It was almost safely landed in José’s dish, when suddenly there was a great flapping of wings and a loud “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” right behind José!
The red rooster had opened his eyes, and when he saw the glow of the fire, he thought it must be morning. So he crowed at once, and then flew right down off his perch, and before any one knew what he was after or could stop him, he had snatched José’s candied sweet potato off the end of Doña Teresa’s stick, and was running away with it as fast as he could go!
“Thanks be to God,” said José, “that piece was still very hot!”
The red rooster soon found that out for himself. He was so afraid that somebody would get his morsel away from him that he swallowed it whole, boiling hot syrup and all! He thought it was worse than the red pepper and the gold paint he had taken that morning.
He opened his bill wide and squawked with pain, and his eyes looked wild. The children rolled on the ground with laughter.[p51]The last they saw of the red rooster he was running to the back of the house, where a dish of water was kept for the chickens; and it is perfectly true that for three days after that he could hardly crow at all!
Doña Teresa was dreadfully ashamed of the red rooster. She apologized and gave José another piece of sweet potato at once, and then she passed out more pieces to the children, andsaid:—
“Now mind you don’t behave like the rooster! You see what he got for being greedy.”
[p52]The children sucked their pieces slowly, so as to make them last a long time, and while they got themselves all sticky with syrup, José told them the story of Cinderella and her glass slippers and her pumpkin coach, and two ghost stories.
“Where did you learn so many beautiful stories, José?” asked Tonio when he had finished the last one. “Did you read them out of a book?” (You see Tonio and Tita and some of the older children went to school and were beginning to read a little.)
José shook his head. “No,” he said, “I didn’t read them out of books. I never had a chance to go to school when I was a boy. I tell you these stories just as they were told to me by my mother when I was as small as you are. And she couldn’t read either, so somebody must have told them to her. Not everything comes from books, you see.”
“Yes,” said Doña Teresa. “I heard them[p53]from my mother when I was a child, and she couldn’t read any more than Pancho and I can. But with these children here it will be different. They can get stories from you, and out of the books too. It is a great thing to have learning, though a peon can get along with very little of it, praise God.”
Up to this time Pancho had not said a single word. He had brought sticks for the fire and had listened silently to the stories; but now he spoke.
“When the peons get enough learning, they will learn not to be peons at all,” he said.
“But whatever will they be then?” gasped Doña Teresa. “Surely they must be whatever the good God made them, and if they are bornpeons—”
She stopped and looked a little alarmed, as if she thought perhaps after all it might be as well for Tonio and Tita to be like most of the people she knew—quite unable to read or write.
[p54]She crossed herself, and snatched Tita to her breast.
“You shall not learn enough to make you fly away from the nest, my bird!” she said.
Then Pancho spoke again. “With girls it does not matter,” he said. “Girls do not need to know any thing but how to grind corn and make tortillas, and mind the babies—that is what girls are for. But boys—boys will be menand—” But here it seemed to occur to him that perhaps he was saying too much, and he became silent again.
José had listened thoughtfully, and when Pancho finished he sighed a little and made a soft little “ting-ting-a-ting-ting” on his guitar-strings. Then he jumped up and began to sing and dance, playing the guitar all the while. It was a song about the little dwarfs, and the children loved it.
“Oh, how pretty are the dwarfs,The little ones, the Mexicans!Out comes the pretty one,Out comes the ugly one,Out comes the dwarf with his jacket of skin.”
“Oh, how pretty are the dwarfs,
The little ones, the Mexicans!
Out comes the pretty one,
Out comes the ugly one,
Out comes the dwarf with his jacket of skin.”
[p55]José sang,—and every time he came to thewords,—
“Outcomes the little one,Outcomes the pretty one,”
“Outcomes the little one,
Outcomes the pretty one,”
he stooped down as he danced and made himself look as much like a dwarf as he possibly could.
When he had finished the Dwarf Song, José tucked his guitar under his arm, and bowed politely to Doña Teresa and Pancho.
“Adios!” he said. “May you rest well.”
“Adios, adios!” shouted all the children.
And Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins replied: “Adios! God give you sweet sleep.”
Then José and the children went away, and the tinkle of the guitar grew fainter and fainter in the distance. When they could no longer hear it, Doña Teresa went into the cabin, unrolled the mats, and laid out the pillows, and soon the Twins and their father and mother were all sound asleep on their hard beds.
[p56]When at last everything was quiet, the red rooster came stepping round from behind the house, and looked at the dying coals of the fire as if he wondered whether they were good to eat. He seemed to think it best not to risk it, however, for he flew up into the fig tree once more and settled himself for the night.
[p58]
Itis hard for us to understand how they tell what season it is in a country like Mexico, where there is no winter, and no snow except on the tops of high mountains, and where flowers bloom all the year round.
Tonio and Tita can tell pretty well by the way they go to school. During the very hot dry weather of April and May there is vacation. In June, when the rainy season begins, school opens again. Then, though the rain pours down during some part of every day or night, in between times the sky is so blue, and the sunshine so bright, and the air so sweet, that the Twins like the rainy season really better than the dry.
If you should pass the open door of their school some day when it is in session, you[p60]would hear a perfect Babel of voices all talking at once and saying such things as this,—only they would say them in Spanish instead ofEnglish,—
“The cat sees the rat. Run, rat, run. Two times six is thirteen, two times seven is fifteen” (I hope you’d know at once that that was wrong). “Mexico is bounded on the north by the United States of America, on the east by the Gulf of Mexico, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the … Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519 and brought the holy Catholic religion to Mexico. The Churchis …”
Then perhaps you would clap your hands on your ears and think the whole school had gone crazy, but it would only mean that in Mexico the children all study aloud. The sixth grade is as high as any one ever goes, and most of them stop at the fourth.
Señor Fernandez thinks that is learning enough for any peon, and as it is his school, and his teacher, and his land, of course things have to be as he says.
[p61]Pancho asked the priest about it one day. He said: “I should like to have Tonio get as much learning as he can. Learning must be a great thing. All the rich and powerful people seem to have it. Perhaps that is what makes them rich and powerful.”
But the priest shook his head and said, “Tonio needs only to know how to be good, and obey the Church, and to read and write and count a little. More knowledge than that would make him unhappy and discontented with his lot. You do not wish to make him unhappy. Contentment with godliness is great gain. Is it not so, my son?”
The priest called everybody, even Señor Fernandez himself, “my son,” unless he was speaking to a girl or a woman, and then he said, “my daughter.”
Pancho scratched his head as if he were very much puzzled by a good many things in this world, but he only said, “Yes, little father,” very humbly, and went away to mend the gate of the calves’ corral.
I am not going to tell you very much about the Twins’ school, because the Twins didn’t care so very much about it themselves.
But I am going to tell you about one particular day, because that day a great deal happened to Tonio. Some of it wasn’t at all pleasant, but you will not be surprised at that when I explain the reason why.
A good many months had passed by since San Ramon’s Day, and it was a bright beautiful spring morning, when the Twins left their little adobe hut to go to school.
They had to be there at half past eight, and as the schoolhouse was some distance down the road and there were a great many interesting things on the way, they started rather early.
Doña Teresa gave them two tortillas apiece, rolled up with beans inside, to eat at recess, and Tonio wrapped them in a cloth and carried them in his hat just the way Pancho carried his lunch, only there was no[p63]chile sauce, this time. Doña Teresa waved good-bye to them from the trough where she was grinding her corn.
The air was full of the sweet odor of honeysuckle blossoms, and the roadsides were gay with flowers, as the Twins walked along. The birds were flying about getting material for their nests, and singing as if they would split their little throats.
Sheep were grazing peacefully in a pasture beside the road, with their lambs gamboling about them. In a field beyond, the goats were leaping up in the air and butting playfully at each other, as if the lovely day made them feel lively too. Calves were bleating in the corrals, and away off on the distant hillside the children could see cows moving about, and an occasional flash of red when a vaquero rode along, his bright serape flying in the sun.
Farther away there were blue, blue mountain-peaks crowned with glistening snow, and from one of them a faint streak of white smoke rose against the blue of the sky. It[p64]was a beautiful morning in a beautiful world where it seemed as if every one was meant to be happy and good.
The school was not far from the gate where José, the gate-keeper, sat all day, waiting to open and close the gate for cowboys as they drove the cattle through.
The Twins stopped to speak to José, and[p65]just then on a stone right beside the gate Tonio saw a little green lizard taking a sun bath. He was about six inches long and he looked like a tiny alligator.
Tonio crept up behind him very quietly and as quick as a flash caught him by the tail. Just then the teacher rang the bell, and the Twins ran along to join the other children at the schoolhouse door, but not one of them, not even Tita herself, knew that Tonio had that green lizard in his pocket!
Tonio didn’t wear any clothes except a thin white cotton suit, and he could feel the lizard squirming round in his pocket. Tonio didn’t like tickling, and the lizard tickled like everything.
As they came into the schoolroom, the boys took off their hats and said, “God give you good day,” to the Señor Maestro11—that is what they called the teacher.
Then they hung their hats on nails in the wall, while the girls curtsied to the teacher and went to their seats.
[p66]When they were all in their places and quiet, the Señor Maestro stood up in front of the school, and raised his hand. At once all the children knelt down beside their seats. The Maestro knelt too, put his hands together, bowed his head, and said a prayer. He was right in the middle of the prayer when the lizard tickled so awfully in Tonio’s pocket that Tonio,—I really hate to have to tell it, but facts are facts,—Tonio laughed—aloud!
Then he was so scared, and so afraid he would laugh again if the lizard kept on tickling, that he put his hand in his pocket and took it out. Kneeling in front of Tonio was a boy named Pablo, and the bare soles of his feet were turned up in such a way that Tonio just couldn’t help dropping the lizard on to them.
The lizard ran right up Pablo’s leg, inside his cotton trousers, and Pablo let out a yell like a wild Indian on the warpath, and began to act as if he had gone crazy.
He jumped up and danced about clutching[p67]his clothes, and screaming! The Señor Maestro and the children were perfectly amazed. They couldn’t think what ailed Pablo until, all of a sudden, the green lizard dropped on the floor out of his sleeve and scuttled as fast as it could toward the girls’ side of the room. Then the girls screamed and stood on their seats until the lizard got out of sight.
Nobody knew where it had gone, until the Señor Maestro suddenly fished it out of[p68]a chink in the adobe wall and held it up by the tail.
“Who brought this lizard into the schoolroom?” he asked.
Tonio didn’t have to say a word. I don’t know how they could be so sure of it, but all the children pointed their fingers at Tonio and said, “He did.”
The Maestro said very sternly to Tonio, “Go out to the willow tree and bring me a strong switch,” Tonio went.
He went very slowly and came back with the willow switch more slowly still.
I think you can guess what happened next—I hope you can, for I really cannot bear to tell you about it. When it was over Tonio was sent home, while all the other children sat straight up in their seats, looking so hard at their books that they were almost cross-eyed, and studying their lessons at the top of their lungs.
If you had asked them then, they would every one have told you that they considered it very wrong to bring lizards to[p69]school, and that under no circumstances would they ever think of doing such a thing.
Tonio walked slowly down the road toward his home. He didn’t cry, but he looked as if he wished he could just come across somebody else who was doing something wrong! He’d like to teach him better.
When José saw him, he called out to him, “Is school out?”
“No,” said Tonio. “I am,” and he never said another word to José.
[p70]He had the willow switch in his hand. The Maestro had given it to him, “to remember him by,” he said. Tonio felt pretty sure he could remember him without it, but he switched the weeds beside the road with it as he walked along, and there was some comfort in that.
At last he remembered that he had a luncheon in the crown of his hat. He sat down beside the road and ate all four tortillas and every single bean. Then he went home. His mother was not in the house when he got there.
Jasmin came frisking up to Tonio and jumped about him and licked his hand. It seemed strange to Tonio that even a dog could be cheerful in such a miserable world. He took his lasso down from the wall and went out again with Jasmin.
The cat was lying back of the house in the sunshine asleep. Tonio pointed her out to Jasmin and he sent her up the fig tree in a hurry. Then Jasmin chased the hens. He drove the red rooster right in among the[p71]beehives, and when the bees came out to see what was the matter they chased Jasmin instead of the rooster, and stung him on the nose. Jasmin ran away yelping to dig his nose in the dirt, and Tonio went on by himself through the woods.
Soon he came to the stepping-stones that led across the river to the goat-pasture, and there he met José’s son and another boy.
“Hello, there! Where are you going?” Tonio called to them.
“We aren’t going; we’ve been,” said José’s son, whose name was Juan.12The other boy’s name was Ignacio.13
“Well, where have you been then?” said Tonio.
“Down to the lake hunting crabs. We didn’t find any,” they said.
You see there is no law in Mexico that every child must go to school, and the parents of Juan and Ignacio didn’t make them go either, so they often stayed away.
[p72]“What’s the reason you’re not in school?” Juan said to Tonio. “I thought your father always made you go.”
“Well,” said Tonio, “I—I—hum—well—I thought I would rather play bull-fight up in the pasture! I’ve got an old goat up there trained so he’ll butt every time he sees me. Come along.”
The three boys crossed on the stepping-stones, and ran up the hill on the other side of the river to the goat-pasture.
There was a growing hedge of cactus plants around the goat-pasture. This kind of cactus grows straight up in tall, round spikes about as large around as a boy’s leg, and higher than a man’s head. The spikes are covered with long, stiff spines that stick straight out and prick like everything if you run into them. The only way to get through such a fence is to go to the gate, so the boys ran along until they came to some bars. They opened the bars (and forgot to put them up again) and went into the pasture.
[p73]
When they got inside the pasture the boys looked about for the goat. This goat was quite a savage one, and was kept all by himself in a small field. It did not take them long to find him. He was grazing quietly in the shadow of a mesquite14tree. As Tonio had the only lasso there was, he knew he[p74]could have the game all his own way, so hesaid,—
“I’ll take the first turn with the lasso, Ignacio; you wave your red serape at the goat while Juan stirs him up from behind.”
The goat had his head down, eating grass, and did not notice the boys until suddenly Juan split the air behind him with a fearful roar and prodded his legs with a stick.
“Ah, Toro!” roared Juan at the top of his lungs just as he had heard the matadors do at a real bull-fight, and at the same moment Ignacio shook out his red serape.
The goat looked up, saw Tonio and the red serape, and immediately stood up on his hind legs. Then he came down with a thump on his fore feet, put his head down, and ran at Ignacio like a bullet from a gun. Ignacio waved the serape and shouted, and when the goat got very near, he jumped to one side as he had seen the matadors do, and the goat butted with all his might right into the serape.
When he struck the serape his horn went[p75]through one end of it. Ignacio had hold of the other end and before he knew what had happened he was rolling backward down a little slope into a pool of water which was the goat’s drinking-place.
Meanwhile the goat went bounding about[p76]the pasture with the serape hanging from one horn. Every few minutes he would stamp on it and paw it with his fore feet. Ignacio picked himself out of the water, and then all three boys began a wild chase to get back the serape. It would be a sad day for Ignacio if he went home without it.
Serapes are the most valuable things there are in a peon’s hut, and were never intended to be used by goats in this way.
Tonio couldn’t lasso the goat because the serape covered his horns, so the boys all tried to snatch off the serape as the goat went galloping past, but every time they tried it the goat butted at them, and they had to run for their lives.
At last the goat stood up on his hind legs and came down on the serape so hard that there was a dreadful tearing sound, and there was the serape torn clear in two and lying on the ground!
When his horns were free, the goat looked around for the boys. He was a very mad goat, and when he saw them he went for[p77]them like an express train. Juan ran one way, and Ignacio ran the other. Tonio was a naughty boy, but he wasn’t a coward. He kept his lasso whirling over his head, and as the goat came by, out flew the loop and dropped over his horns!
The goat was much stronger than he, but Tonio braced back with all his might and held on to the rope. Then began a wild dance! The goat went bounding around the pasture with Tonio at the other end of the rope bouncing after him.
It was a sight to see, and Juan and Ignacio were not the only ones who saw it either.
Señor Fernandez was going by on his fine black horse, and when he heard the yells of the boys he rode up to the pasture to see what was going on. He was right beside the bars when the goat and Tonio came tearing through.
The goat jumped over the bars that the[p78]boys had left down, but Tonio caught his foot and fell down, and the goat jerked the rope out of his hands and went careering off over the fields and was soon out of sight.
Tonio sat up all out of breath and looked at Señor Fernandez. Señor Fernandez looked at Tonio. Juan and Ignacio were nowhere to be seen. They were behind bushes in the goat-pasture, and they were both very badly scared.
“Well,” said Señor Fernandez at last, “what have you been doing?”
“Just playing bull-fight a little,” Tonio answered in a very small voice.
“Didn’t you know that wasmygoat?” said Señor Fernandez severely. “What business have you driving it mad like that? Get up.”
Tonio got up. He was stiff and sore all over. Moreover, his hands were all skinned inside, where the rope had pulled through.
“Were you alone?” asked Señor Fernandez.
“Not—very—” stammered Tonio.
[p79]“Where are the other boys?” demanded the Señor Fernandez.
“I d—don’t know,” gasped poor Tonio. “I—I don’t see them anywhere.” (Tonio was looking right up into the top of the cactus hedge when he said this, so I am quite sure he spoke the truth.)
“Humph,” grunted Señor Fernandez. “Go look for them.”
Tonio began to hunt around stones and bushes in the pasture with Señor Fernandez following right behind on his horse. It wasn’t long before he caught a glimpse of red. It was the pieces of the serape, which Ignacio had picked up. Tonio pointed it out, and Señor Fernandez galloped to it and brought out the two culprits. Then he marched the three boys back to the village in front of his horse, Tonio with his blistered hands and torn clothes, Juan with bumps that were already much swollen, and Ignacio wet as a drowned rat and carrying the rags of the serape.
[p80]
[p81]When they got back to the river theyfound Doña Teresa there washing out some clothes. When she saw them coming she stopped rubbing and looked at them. She was perfectly astonished. She supposed, of course, that Tonio was in school.
“Here, Doña Teresa, is a very bad boy,” Señor Fernandez said to her. “He has been chasing my goat all around the pasture and lassoing it, and he left the bars down and they are broken besides, and no one knows where the goat is by this time. I’ll leave him to you, but I want you to make a thorough job of It.”
He didn’t say just what she should make a thorough job of, but Tonio hadn’t the smallest doubt about what he meant. Doña Teresa seemed to understand too.
Señor Fernandez rode on and left Tonio with his mother while he took the other two boys to their homes. What happened there I do not know, but when she and Tonio were alone I do know that Doña Teresa said sternly, “Go bring me a strong switch from the willow tree,” and that Tonio thought, as[p82]he went for it, that there were more willow trees in the world than were really needed.
And I know that when Doña Teresa had done “IT”—whatever it was that Señor Fernandez had asked her to do thoroughly—Tonio ffelt that it would be a very long time before he took any interest in either lizards or goats again.
That evening Pancho went out with Pinto and hunted up the goat and put him back in the pasture and brought home Tonio’s lasso, and when he hung it up on the nail he said to Tonio, “I think you’re too young to be trusted with a lasso. Let that alone for two weeks.”
That was the very worst of all. To be told that he was too young! Tonio went out and sat down under the fig tree and thought perhaps he’d better run away.
But pretty soon Tita came out and sat down beside him and told him she was sure he never meant any harm about the lizard, and his mother washed his skinned hands and put oil on then, and brought him some[p83]molasses to eat on his tortillas just as if she still loved him in spite of everything.
So Tonio went to bed quite comforted, and that was the end of the day.
11Mah-ĕs´trō.12Hwahn.13Ig-nah´sĭ-ō.14Mes´keet.
11Mah-ĕs´trō.
12Hwahn.
13Ig-nah´sĭ-ō.
14Mes´keet.
[p84]
[p84b]
Oneday, later in spring, in the week just before Easter, Doña Teresa got ahead of the red rooster. It happened in this way. Early in the morning, when everything was still as dark as a pocket, and not a single rooster in the neighborhood had yet thought of crowing, Doña Teresa woke up and lighted a candle. Then see went over to the Twins’ mat and held up her candle so she could look at them. They were both sound asleep.
“Wake up, my lambs,” said Doña Teresa. But her lambs didn’t wake up. Doña Teresa shook them gently. “Wake up, dormice! Don’t you know this is Judas Iscariot Day, and you are all going to town? Come, we are going in Pedro’s boat, and he has to start early.”
[p86]Tita began to rub her eyes, and Tonio was sitting up with both of his wide open the moment Doña Teresa said the word “boat.” They bounced out in a minute, and they even washed without being told, and they used soap, too!
Pancho was roused by the noise they made. He got up at once and went to attend to the donkey and to Pinto. When he opened the door the gleam of Doña Teresa’s candle woke the red rooster. He began to crow, and then all the other roosters crowed, and almost right away candles were glimmering in every hut in the village and every one was up and getting ready to start to town.
Everybody was going. Some were going on horseback and some on donkeys; more were walking, and as it was many miles from the hacienda to the town it was necessary to start very early.
The quickest way to go was by boat, but, of course, not every one could go that way because there were not enough boats. Pedro’s boat went back and forth every day[p87]between the hacienda and the town, carrying wood and all kinds of supplies. He was a friend of Pancho’s and that was how they were so fortunate as to be invited to go with him.
Doña Teresa got breakfast very quickly, and while they were eating it they heard a voice calling, “Here, buy your Judases—at six and twelve cents—your Judases.”
“There comes the Judas-seller. Run, children, run,” cried Doña Teresa. “You may each have twelve cents and you may buy two little ones or one big one, as you like.”
The Judas-seller had a long branch cut from a tree, with little twigs growing out of it. On each twig hung a “Judas.” They were small dolls, with sticky pink-painted faces and sticky black-painted hair, and they were dressed in tissue paper. The hands of the Judases were stuck straight out on each side and from one hand to the other there was a string stretched. Fire-crackers were hung along on this string. When these[p88]fire-crackers go off, one after another, they set fire to the Judas and burn him up.
You remember that long years ago, when Jesus was on earth, He was betrayed by a man named Judas Iscariot, who sold Him to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver. In Mexico, Judas Iscariot Day is kept in remembrance of this, and all the Judases which the people buy and burn up are to show how very wicked they believe the real Judas to have been.
But the Judas dolls didn’t look the least bit as the real Judas must have looked. Some of them were made to look like Mexican donkey-boys and some like water-carriers, while others represented priests, or policemen, or cowboys.
Tita couldn’t make up her mind whether to buy a donkey-boy or a policeman. But Tonio found what he wanted right away. It was a “Judas” made like a thin young school-teacher! Tonio thought it looked like the Señor Maestro, and he thought it would be very pleasant to see him burn up,[p89]and so, though he cost twelve cents, he bought him at once.
When Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins were ready they went in a little procession to the lake-shore. They found Pedro with his wife and baby and Pablo already there.
This was the very same Pablo on whose feet Tonio had put the lizard. He was Pedro’s son.
Pedro was loading the boat with bundles of reeds. They were the reeds used for weaving the petates15or sleeping-mats. The reeds grew all about the lake, but the people in the town could not easily get them, so Pedro had gathered a supply to sell to them.
The boat was quite large. It had one sail and there was a thatched roof of reeds over the back part of it. It was too large to bring into the shallow water near the shore, so[p90]Pedro had rolled up his white trousers and was wading back and forth from the boat to the beach, carrying a bundle of reeds each time and stowing it away under the thatch.
Pancho at once took off his sandals, rolled up his trousers, and began to help carry the bundles, while Doña Teresa and the Twins sat on the sand with Pablo and the baby and their mother.
There was a large sack of sweet potatoes lying on the sand beside Pedro’s wife. You could tell they were sweet potatoes because[p91]the bundle was so knobby. Besides Tonio felt of them.
“What are you going to do with your sweet potatoes?” asked Doña Teresa.
“I’m going to cook them in molasses and sell them,” said Pedro’s wife. “I shall sit under an awning and watch the fun and turn a penny at the same time. The baby is too heavy to carry round all day, anyway.”
“I’ll help you,” said Doña Teresa. “Very likely I shall be glad enough to sit down somewhere myself before the day is over.”
“Pedro made me a little brasero out of a tin box,” said his wife, “and I have a bundle of wood right here, and the syrup and the dishes, all ready.”
When the reeds had all been put on board, Pancho took Tonio in his arms and Pedro took Pablo, and they tossed them into the boat as if they had been sacks of meal. The boys scrambled under the covered part and out to the bow at once, and[p92]Pablo got astride the very nose of the boat and let his feet hang over.
Then Pedro lifted Tita in.
It was more of a job to get the mothers aboard, for Pedro’s wife was fat, and he was a small man. Pedro shook his head when he looked at his wife, then he took off his sombrero, and scratched his head. At last he said, “I think I’ll begin with the baby.”
He took the baby and waded out to the boat and handed her to Tita, then he went back to shore and took another look at his wife. “It’ll take two of us,” he said to Pancho.
“I’m your man,” said Pancho bravely. “I can lift half of her.”
So Pedro and Pancho made a chair with their arms, and Pedro’s wife sat on it, and put her arms around their necks, and they waded out with her into the water.
They got along beautifully until they reached the side of the boat and undertook to lift her over the edge. Then there came[p93]near being an awful accident, for Pedro’s foot slipped on a slimy stone and he let her down on one side so that one of her feet went into the water.
“Holy mother!” screamed Pedro’s wife. “They are going to drown me!”
She waved her arms about and jounced so that Pancho almost dropped the other foot in too, but just in time Pedro shouted, “One, two, three, and over she goes,” and[p94]as he saidover, he and Pancho gave a great heave both together, and in she went all in a heap beside Tita and the baby.
While she crawled under the awning and settled herself with the baby and stuck her foot out in the sunshine to dry, Pancho and Pedro went back for Doña Teresa. She wasn’t very stout so they got her in without any trouble.
They put in the brasero and all the other things, and last of all Pancho and Pedro climbed on board themselves, hoisted the sail, and pushed off. Luckily the breeze was just right, and they floated away over the blue water at about the time of day that you first begin to think of waking up.
Even with a good breeze it took nearly an hour to sail across the lake. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry to see the fun in town, the Twins and Pablo would have wished to have it take longer still.
Far away across the lake they could see[p95]the town with its little bright-colored adobe houses and the spire of the church standing up above the tree-tops.
As they drew nearer and nearer, they could see a bridge, and people passing over it, and flags flying, and then they turned into a river which ran through the town, where there were many other boats.
It took some time to find a good place to tie the boat, but at last it was done, and the whole party went ashore and started up the street toward the open square in the middle of the town.
Pedro and Pancho went ahead, each carrying three bundles of reeds on his back. Then came Pedro’s wife with the bag of sweet potatoes, while Doña Teresa carried the baby. Pablo had the brasero and the wood, and Tonio and Tita brought up the rear with the molasses jug, the cooking-dishes, and their Judases all carefully packed together.
“Now, mind you, Tonio,” said Doña Teresa as the procession started, “don’t[p96]you get to watching everything in the street and forget that jug of molasses.”
It was pretty hard to keep your mind on[p97]a jug when there were so many wonderful things to see. In the first place there was the street itself. No one had ever seen it so gay! Strings had been stretched back and forth across the street from the flat tops of the houses on either side, and from these strings hung thousands of tissue-paper streamers and pennants in all sorts of gorgeous colors.
The houses in Mexican towns are close to the street-line and stand very near together. They are built around a tiny open space in the center called a patio. The living-rooms open on the patio, so all that can be seen of a house from the street is a blank wall with a doorway, and perhaps a window or two with little balconies. Sometimes, if the door is open, there are glimpses of plants, flowers, and bird-cages in the little patio.
Pablo and Tonio and Tita had their hands full, but they kept their eyes open, and their mouths too. They seemed to feel they could see more that way.
It was not very long before they came to the public square or plaza of the town, and there on one side was the church whose spire they had seen from the boat.
On the other side was the market-place, and in the center of the square there was a fountain. In another place there was a gayly painted band-stand with the red, white, and green flag of Mexico flying over it.
There were beds of gay geraniums at each corner of the square, and large trees made a pleasant shade where people could sit and watch the crowds, or listen to music, if the band were playing.
Pedro and Pancho went straight across the street to the market side. There were rows of small booths there, and already many of them were occupied by people who had things to sell. There were peanut-venders,and pottery-sellers; there were women with lace and drawn work; there were foods of all kinds, and flowers, and birds in cages,[p99]and chickens in coops or tied up by the legs, and geese and ducks,—in fact, I can’t begin to tell you all the things there were for sale in that market.
Pedro found a stall with an awning over it and took possession at once. He and Pancho put down the bundles of reeds in a pile, and his wife sat on them. Pedro placed the brasero on the ground in front of her, and the sweet potatoes by her side. Pablo put down the wood, and Doña Teresa put the baby into her arms. Tita gave her the cooking-dishes, and Tonio was just going to hand her the jug, when bang-bang-bang!—three fire-crackers went off one right after the other almost in his ear! Tonio jumped at least a foot high, and oh—the jug! It accidentally tipped over sideways, and poured a puddle of molasses right on top of the baby’s head!
It ran down his cheek, but the baby had the presence of mind to stick his tongue out sideways and lick up some of it, so it wasn’t all wasted.
[p100]
Doña Teresa said several things to Tonio while the baby was being mopped up. Tonio couldn’t see why they should mind it if the baby didn’t.
At last Doña Teresa finished by saying to the Twins and Pablo, “Now you run round the square and have a good time by yourselves, only see that you don’t get[p101]into any more mischief; and come back when you’re hungry.”
Pedro and Pancho had already gone off by themselves, and as they didn’t say where they were going I can’t tell you anything about it. I only know they were seen not long after in front of a pulque shop (pulque16is a kind of wine) talking in low tones with a Tall Man on horseback, and that after that nobody saw them for a long time. It may be they went to a cock-fight, for there was a cock-fight behind the pulque shop and most of the other men went if they did not.
The Twins and Pablo with their precious Judases went to a bench near the fountain, and sat down to watch the fun. There were water-carriers filling their long earthen jars at the fountain; there were young girls in bright dresses who laughed a great deal; and there were young men in[p102]big hats and gay serapes who stood about and watched them.
There were more small boys than you could count. Twelve o’clock was the time that every one was supposed to set off his fire-crackers, and the children waited patiently until the shadows were very short indeed under the trees in the square and there had been one or two explosions to start the noise, then they tied their Judases up in a row to the back of the bench. They[p103]hung Tonio’s Maestro in the middle, with Tita’s donkey-boy on one side and the policeman on the other. Pablo’s Judas was a policeman too, and they put him on the other side of the donkey-boy.
Then Pablo borrowed a match from a boy and set fire to the first cracker on his policeman. Fizz-fizz-bang! off went the first fire-cracker. Fizz-fizz-bang! off went the second one. When the third one exploded, the policeman whirled around on his string, one of his hands caught fire, and up he went in a puff of smoke.
They lighted the fuses on the donkey-boy and the other policeman, both at once, and last of all Tonio set fire to the Maestro Judas. He was the biggest one of all. While the fire-crackers went off in a series of bangs, Tonio jumped up and down and sang, “Pop goes the Maestro! Pop goes the Maestro!” and Tita and Pablo thought that was so very funny that they hopped about and sang it too.
Just as the last fire-cracker went off and[p104]Tonio’s Judas caught fire, and all three of them were dancing and singing at the top of their lungs, Tonio saw the Señor Maestro himself standing in front of the bench with his hands in his pockets, looking right at them!
Tonio shut his mouth so quickly that he bit his tongue, and then Pablo and Tita saw the Maestro and stopped singing too, and they all three ran as fast as they could go to the other side of the square and lost themselves in the crowd.
[p105]They stayed away for quite a long time. They were in the crowd by a baker’s shop when a great big Judas which hung high overhead exploded and showered cakes over them. They each picked up a cake and then ran back to show their goodies to their mothers. They could hardly get near the booth at first, because there was quite a little crowd around it, but they squirmed under the elbows of the grown people, and right beside the brasero eating a piece of candied sweet potato, and talking to Doña Teresa, whom should they see but the Señor Maestro?
Tonio wished he hadn’t come. He turned round and tried to dive back into the crowd again, but the Señor Maestro reached out and caught him by the collar and pulled him back. Tonio was very much frightened. He thought surely the Maestro had told his mother about “Pop goes the Maestro,” and that very unpleasant things were likely to happen.
“Any way, there aren’t any willow trees[p106]in the plaza,” he said to himself. “That’s one good thing.”
But what really happened was this. The Maestro took three pennies out of his pocket, and said to Pedro’s wife, “Please give me three pieces of your nice sweet potatoes for my three friends here!”
Pedro’s wife was so busy with her cooking that she did not look up to see who his three friends were until she had taken the pennies and handed out the sweet potatoes. Then she saw Pablo and Tonio and Tita all three standing in a row looking very foolish.
She was quite overcome at the honor the Maestro had done her in buying sweet potatoes to give to her son, and Doña Teresa thought to herself, “They really must be very good and clean children to have the Maestro think so much of them as that.” She thanked him, and Tonio and Tita and Pablo all thanked him.
After that there was a wonderful concert by a band all dressed in green and white[p107]uniforms with red braid, and at the end of the concert, it was four o’clock. Pedro’s wife had sold all her sweet potatoes by that time and Pedro had sold all his reeds. Pancho had come back, the baby was sleepy, and every one was tired and ready to go home. So the whole party returned to the boat, this time without any heavy bundles except the baby to carry, and sailed away across the lake toward the hacienda.
Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins reached their little adobe hut just as the red rooster and the five hens and the turkey were flying up to their roost in the fig tree.