Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/107

 was executed, she would jump, and give a fresh howl of agony over the disobedience she had so innocently practiced, saying: "Perdóname, no lo vuelvo á hacer" ("Oh, forgive me, I won't do it again").

The end of all this was that they took up their pallets of maguey and walked, leaving me to a pious meditation on the frailties and foibles of human nature in general, and on the peculiarities of Mexican servants in particular; and also to the disagreeable necessity of cutting the chickens down, and preparing my dinner single-handed.

The meek little wife, guarded by her grim liege, looked back at me askant, slyly kissed her hand, and smiled. This was the last I saw of Juanita.

The mozo, of all the various servants, was daily becoming more and more a vexatious problem. Indispensable, but to the last degree puzzling, I was anxious to know at what point in my experience the tolerated or " customary '" labors of this individual would be introduced.

The time had now come when, as I feared, his entire vocabulary would narrow down to this one familiar sentence, "No es costumbre," and he would assume the immovable and useless position of a mere figurehead. My imagination was wrought to an exalted state of anticipation, and I knew not what a day would bring forth. Every day carried me nearer to the time of Mother Noah, and to a world of chance. Wood, when not in small pieces and sold from the backs of burros, brought root, branch, and top, on ancient carts with wooden wheels, larger than the Aztec calendar; dogs called "Sal" regardless of sex; the yellow of the egg white; corn husks sold by the hundred; vinegar from France; and the tomato, our delicious vegetable, here assuming the masculine prefix he-tomato (spelled jitomati); all these things formed a grotesque panorama of curious contradictions all safely fortified behind the cast-iron "Costumbres."