Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/428

422 of the original amount. The accompanying plates show how these accounts are kept.



The furnishing of the homes of the common people is necessarily meager; sometimes only mats laid upon the dirt floor serve for beds, or a few rudely made bedsteads and chairs, with pictures of the saints and a quantity of home-manufactured toys, constitute the outfit. They jente ordinario, but their houses are reasonably clean. One corner of the room is generally devoted to an infinite variety of pottery suspended on nails, This is collected from all parts of the country, and is their chief household treasure; even small children can point out the different kinds and tell where each piece was made.

Let one enter when he will, he is sure to be greeted politely, and to have the kindliest hospitality extended to him. I remember one of