Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/123

 One of them fingered a knot of red and blue ribbons at my throat, saying: "From France? No such fine things here!"—Everything fine, in their estimation, comes from France. They seemed incredulous, when I patriotically informed them that the United States, and not France, had furnished me forth in all this astonishing glory. Before I knew it, one had picked the bow to pieces, and drawn the ribbons out, to see how long they were. Another called attention to the Newport ties on my feet, and compared them, with much curiosity, and some envy, with her own shoes, which, after the fashion of the country, were sharply pointed. All appreciated the greater comfort of the American-made shoe, but ended by shaking their heads—"Very nice—very pretty—but"—and what an execrable ''but! "no es costumbre Mexicana!''"

They were equally curious about my family relations, asking me the number of my brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, and aunts—never stopping until I had named them all, their location and business. When I mentioned a name, they immediately caught it up, and tried to translate it into Spanish, showing much satisfaction when successful. Their efforts in this direction were laughable.

They translated readily Willie, Guillermo; Fanny, Panchita; Richard, Ricardo; Andrew, Andres; but Walter was a stumbling-block, they neither translated nor pronounced it. They asked me if in our country we had houses of adobe and windows like theirs with wooden rods outside? Their eyes opened wide and wider, as I described our houses as from two stories in height, to five, eight, ten and thirteen. They evidently thought I was drawing on my imagination.

When asked if in our country we used carriages, goats, and burros—had haciendas, ranches, factories, and mills, I described as well as I could our resources. They were convulsed when I told them that until I came to Mexico, I had never seen in my whole life more than six burros. They appreciated and sympathized with my lack of education on the burro question; for to be beyond the sight of a line of them was equivalent to being out of the republic.

Every one of the various persons with whom I chatted asked me