Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/76

74 few Mexicans, even among the better class, wear suspenders. They wrap themselves about the waist with a bright-colored scarf, with fringed ends, and this constitutes suspenders. Many of the better class wear embroidered and ruffled shirt fronts.

The fruit venders have beautiful voices, and sing out their wares in such a charming manner that one is sorry when they disappear around the corner. They are sometimes quite picturesque with the fruit and vegetables tied up in their rebozo and baskets in their hands. Why the women have all their skirts plain behind and pleated in front I cannot say, but such is invariably the case. The men have horrible voices when they are out selling. There never was anything to equal them. I wonder if our florists would not like to buy orchids from the man who passess our door every morning with about a hundred of them strung to a pole which is suspended from his shoulder, only two reals (twenty-five cents) for exquisite plants, with the rare ones but little higher.

Mr. A. Sborigi, a Pittsburger, was in Mexico on a visit. When he landed in Vera Cruz he went into the country to see the place. Hearing music in a small cabin he drew nearer and recognized familiar tunes. "Wait till the clouds roll by," and Fritz's lullaby. A man came out and invited him in, and after a short time he said he was a colored man, that his name was Jones, and he came from Pittsburg, Pa. He is married to an Indian woman and has about twenty children, ranging all sizes. Mr. Jones is king of the villa. In one room he has a floor, a thing not possessed by any other inhabitant there, and his cabin is superior to all others. He is very proud of his wife and children, and has not the least desire to return to the Smoky City. He speaks Spanish, French, and English fluently.

When Mr. Sborigi was asked for his ticket on the Vera Cruz line, he jokingly handed the conductor an envelope that he had put in his pocket at New Orleans. On it was printed in English, "Tickets to all points of the world." The conductor took the envelope, looked at it, punched it and returned it to the donor. Quite amused, Mr. Sborigi tried it on others, and he not only traveled the entire distance to Mexico, but traveled on at least