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 276 Aguilar (or Eagle Tavern), which is only a stage-house, and no village. Here I vary the monotony of waiting for the change of mules with helping three little girls, from three to five years old, make tortillas. They are pretty, laughing imps, brown of face, black of eye and hair, and would be called handsome by any mother or aunt of them, and will be by some not thus related not ten years hence.

They had a small piece of wood for the hearth, a little ground straw for the fuel, two or three black flakes of mud for the cakes, and a bit of earthenware for the frying-pan. The youngest and brightest of the three told me very chattingly what she wished to do. So, after all was in place, I astonished her by lighting a match and proceeding to kindle her fire. This was making the ideal into the actual a little too rapidly, and they declined the offered blaze. The mother came in from the next hut, and laughed with the children to see such a new friend of the family. Having been ordered by the doctor, a few years since, when prostrated with overwork, to play with the children, I am not quite weaned from that pleasurable medicine yet. But I will venture a guess that the mother and her tottlings of the Venta Aguilar will come to hear me preach when my Spanish is perfected, and I return to hold service at this solitary inn.

The soldiers who were busy gambling for coppers in the stable-yard, I fear will not so readily attend that service, for I made no impression on their minds while spending a moment watching their game. Two pitchers of cents followed the usual fashion of that game. Others sitting around put up their coppers on the throw. They got excited, and could easily have changed their laughs to blows. I prefer the gamboling of the little girls and their baby housekeeping.

From Venta Aguilar we have a delightful ride of six leagues, over as fine a prairie as ever gladdened the eyes of an Illinois former, finer, in fact, because encircled with grand hills. It is such a luxury, after our rocky roads and hideous joltings, to get on a plush carpet, and roll like a lad in the first spring grass on