Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/83

 of their mozos and other servants had not occurred to them, as so striking, until my experiences, together with my enjoyment, had presented them in a new light; and that for them I had held the mirror up to nature. This was only possible by keeping up an establishment, and making one's self part and parcel of the incidents as they occurred. From this and the two succeeding chapters, it may seem that I was constantly involved in annoyances and disagreements with the servants; but such was not the case. Inconveniences more than can be named, were mine in the Sisyphean task of establishing an American home in Mexico, but if the reader can picture a perpetual treat in noting the strict adherence of the mozos to inbred characteristics, surely that privilege was mine.

As time goes on, and I no longer come in actual daily contact with them, in gay retrospect I see moving about me the phantom parade of blue-rebozoed women and white-garbed mozos.

Variety of scene and character was never wanting. If the interior workings of the household failed to interest me, I had only to turn and gaze through my barred window upon the curious street scenes.

On Saturdays, beggars were always out in full force, and on these days my time was mainly occupied in conversing with them, thereby obtaining many threads in the weft I was hoping to weave. A very old man, stooped and bent with age, applied to me for alms, when I asked his age. "Eleven years," he replied. "Oh!" I said, "that is a mistake. Why do you think you are only eleven?"—"Because I was a little boy when the Americans came." From that date—as I understood it—life was over to him and mere existence remained; added years had accumulated, but he was still a boy. I soon found that this class dated every notable event from either the cholera, the advent of the French, or the coming of the Americans.

An American negro was a welcome sight on one of these occasions, and his, good old-time familiar darky dialect, together with the sight of his kinky head, was refreshing. He stopped in front of my window, saying: "Well, now, mis', what is you a doin' heah? 'Marican white ladies neber likes dis country; dey isn't yo' kin o' people."