Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/88

 "Because it will give me disease of the liver; Mexican servants dislike stoves, and if you keep this one, no cook will stay here," she replied.

A blacksmith was called to renovate the treasure, but he also worked on the mañana system, taking weeks to do his best, and still leaving the stove dilapidated. The cook took her departure, and on Pancho's solicitation dozens came, but a glance at the stove was enough.

Politeness ruled their lives, and native courtesy was stronger than love of truth. Without saying a word about the stove, they would say, " I would like to work for you—you are muy amable—muy simpática — amiable and agreeable; but,"—her voice running up to a piping treble — she would add, "tengo mi familia"—I have my family—or, " I am now occupied," meaning employed, by Don or Doña Such-a-one.

Pancho always looked on with keen interest during such conversations, his face saying, without a word: "I told you so; these cooks will never adopt your costumbres Americanos."

The stove was always falling, or some part dropping off.

At last one day I went in and saw it careened to one side—both feet off—and both doors down, suggesting that some canny hand had dismantled it. The wreck presented a picture painfully realistic; but before I time to inquire as to the perpetrator, the stove addressed me:

"I was once an American citizen, bred and born. My pedigree is equal to any of your boasted latter-day ancestry. A residence of twenty years in Mexico has changed my habitudes and customs. You need not try to mend and fix me up—to erect your American household gods on my inanimate form. I am a naturalized Mexican, with all that is implied. I have had my freedom the greater portion of the time since they bought me from a broken-down gringo; for neither the señora nor the cooks would use me. I'll do you no good; if you mend and fix me up in one place, I'll break down in another. Content yourself with our braseros (ranges) and pottery. Accept our usages, and you will be happy in our country.