Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/304

298 These tireless little seekers after knowledge were not released from their arduous duties until six in the evening; eleven long hours, excepting the noon-day recess, sitting there, rebozo-wrapped and book-absorbed.

It was an exaggeration of our "old field" system, and these little Mexicans enjoy a great advantage over their white neighbors; punishment of any kind being prohibited by law, and their "tender thoughts" and "young ideas" are spared the painful necessity of



being taught to "shoot" by the aid and persuasive eloquence of a hickory switch.

By means of tram-cars, we made a charming trip to the Hacienda de la Huerta (plantation of the Garden), the most productive in the Valley of Toluca. We ascended a hundred feet to the mile for nine miles, and shivered with cold as we went. The hacienda is at the foot of the Nevado de Toluca, a perpetually snow-capped mountain, which aided us in the delusion that we had entered the arctic regions.