Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/493

Rh "ten little Indians." They stopped immediately under my window. Their scanty drapery reached a little below the knee, and their shoulders were covered only with their rebozos. Evidently, there was a subject of disagreement between them, which was explained when three men of their own race came across the street and joined them. Then followed angry gestures, bitter intonations, and threatening attitudes, until the passers-by and occupants of the houses eagerly watched the quarrel. The children, quietly indifferent, and as if the affair had no possible interest for them, munched away on their tortillas. The dispute became so violent that I expected as a result to see at least half a dozen dead Indians, but was disappointed.

The man who figured most conspicuously in the scene offered his hand to one of the women. She turned scornfully away, but I noticed, in so doing, she touched the arm of another woman and chuckled in an undertone. He spoke to another. She gave him one thumb only, looking shyly in his face. The next one gave him her whole hand, when he knelt and humbly kissed it, as though it belonged to his patron saint. Then, slipping her hand in his arm, and with her two little Indians, they walked off, leaving the rest of the party to a further discussion of the affair.

Then came a party of three—a huge dog, a grown boy, and an innocent muchacho about one year old. The dog was so loaded down with alfalfa that he could scarcely move. The big boy walked beside him, guiding him with lines. Mounted upon his brother's shoulders, with his feet around his neck, was the little mischief, holding tightly