Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/237

 Señoritas are universally known in plain English as chickens. If very young, they are pollitas (little chickens). If twenty or more years, the graver and more prophetic term polla (grown or big chicken) is applied.

An opportunity was given me of hearing an amusing adaptation of the term. A number of ladies were arranging to give an entertainment for a charitable purpose. All had stated what they would contribute, save one, who had remained silent throughout. But when a lull came in the conversation, she quietly remarked she would bring the pollas y pollitas. The merriment spread like contagion, for she had three marriageable daughters.

On another occasion, at a fashionable dinner party which I attended at the capital, Guillermo Prieto was also a guest.

The venerable poet sat at the extreme end of the long table beside a blooming señorita, who was evidently entertaining the old gentleman to the best of her ability. A charming, middle-aged señora sat near me, and when the conversation flagged, she turned and said, naïvely, "Oye! oye (hear! hear)! Guillermo! You like those pollitas much better than the pollas!" To which he replied, "Naturalmente (naturally), there is nothing prettier or sweeter than a pollita!" An expression of taste which could not be described as national.

But these lovely pollitas never experience the pleasures of our débutantes. From thirteen years of age they may be candidates for matrimony, but such an event crowning their entrance into society as a winter in Washington would be as foreign to their ideas and impressions of real young ladyhood as their Romeo and Juliet lovemaking from the balcony or barred windows to our young ladies. So they are always out, and yet never out!

Solteras or doncellonas viejas is the term applied to old maids. While no derogation attaches to this position, yet often much sport is made at the expense of those who may in any way render themselves odious and disagreeable. Muy fastidiosa''" ("very fastidious," or "a little difficult to please") is politely applied; or "Very