Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/489

Rh They are not unlike those peculiar "riddles" with which the children of the Southern States were once so familiar, coming from the lips of our black "mammies." One, especially, I remember, suggested by my first quotation: "Throw it up green, it comes down red." Ans.: "Watermelon."

The accompanying illustration is descriptive of a game in which Mexican children take great delight.

This droll little sketch was roughly made by a young lad, a friend of mine, in describing the game to me. All Mexican children are natural artists, and some of these play-pictures are remarkably well drawn.

They first draw an oval (1) and say, "This is a man's house;"



then a small circle (2) near the center indicates an observatory on the house. A canal (3) is next made, leading to house. Another, but larger, ellipse (4) is drawn, attached to house; this is the wall around the man's farm. Within this wall another (5) is built which is the inclosure of his orchard. In the night