MANUELI? MEXICO 
 
 ITTLE PEG
 
 LITTLE-P1DQPI 
 
 
 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 UME SAN IN JAPAN 
 RAFAEL IN ITALY 
 KATHLEEN IN IRELAND 
 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 GERDA IN SWEDEN 

 
 BORIS IN RUSSIA 
 BETTY IN CANADA 
 DONALD IN SCOTLAND 
 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 HASSAN IN EGYPT 
 JOSEFA IN SPAIN 
 
 RESEARCH LIBRARY 
 
 4Ub HILGARDAVE 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90024 
 
 213-206-6052
 
 MANUEL IN MEXICO
 
 BESERVtu 
 
 [RESERVED
 
 MANUEL AND BENITO
 
 LITTLE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE 
 
 MANUEL 
 IN MEXICO 
 
 BY ETTA BLAISDELL McDONALD 
 AND JULIA DALRYMPLE 
 
 Authors of "Utnt San in Japan," " Rafael In 
 Italy," " Kathleen in Ireland," etc. 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1910
 
 Copyright, 1909, 
 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 8. J. PARKHILL & Co., BOSTON, U. S. A. 
 
 Los Angeic
 
 RL 
 
 ?2 
 
 7 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Mexico is a land flooded with sunshine and 
 decked with flowers. Its scenery is magnificent. 
 Snow-capped mountains rise amid scenes of tropical 
 beauty. The climate varies from that of the torrid 
 zone on the lowlands, to that of regions of per- 
 petual snow on the lofty peaks. Its people are 
 kindly, courteous, and hospitable. It is a land of 
 tradition and romance, and of picturesque contrasts. 
 
 Nearly half of the inhabitants of the United 
 States of Mexico are Indians, descendants of the 
 Indian races which were conquered by the Span- 
 iards. Many of them are poor peons who live on 
 the haciendas, tilling the soil for their masters as 
 their fathers and grandfathers have done before 
 them for many generations ; but there are those who 
 have become famous men and have accomplished 
 great deeds for their country. 
 
 This story tells how Manuel, a little Mexican lad, 
 who begins his life on the hacienda, has an opportu- 
 nity to go to Mexico City, taking with him his friend 
 Benito. Here the two boys have many interesting 
 adventures and Manuel, at last, realizes his great 
 
 v
 
 VI PREFACE 
 
 ambition of becoming a cadet in the military school 
 of Chapultepec. 
 
 In telling the story the most picturesque customs 
 of the people, both in country and city life, have 
 been introduced. On the hacienda one sees the 
 boys playing games and riding burros, the little girls 
 going to school, the peon laborers working in the 
 fields, the women patting tortillas ; the simple, daily 
 life of the poor Indians. 
 
 In the city is the greatest contrast. Here there 
 are the streets thronged with gaily-dressed people, 
 the markets, the street venders, the parks beautiful 
 with flowers, fountains and electric lights, the 
 canals crowded with flower-laden boats. 
 
 Manuel and Benito become pages to a great lady 
 and take part in the Christmas festivities. They 
 learn a little history and see many of the interest- 
 ing sights in and near Mexico City. 
 
 The pronouncing vocabulary at the end of the 
 book will help to make the reading easy for children, 
 and if they live Manuel's life with him for a little 
 while they cannot fail to find a charm in this land of 
 flowers and sunshine and happy childhood. 
 
 The authors acknowledge their indebtedness to 
 Mrs. Arthur L. Finney, of Orizaba, for valuable 
 information concerning life and customs in Mexico, 
 and to Mr. William Avery Cary for the use of his 
 photographs.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. MANUEL'S BAND i 
 
 II. PEDRO RIDES A BURRO 7 
 
 III. THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN 10 
 
 IV. DONNA HULITA'S BOOK 18 
 
 V. BENITO JUAREZ 21 
 
 VI. JUANA'S BEDSTEAD 25 
 
 VII. TORTILLAS AND TOMATO SAUCE 32 
 
 VIII. MANUEL, THE TEACHER 38 
 
 IX. JUANA'S MEMORIES 44 
 
 X. DONNA HULITA'S CALL 48 
 
 XL CASTLES IN THE AIR 55 
 
 XII. A RIDE ON THE TRAIN 61 
 
 XIII. THE END OF THE JOURNEY 66 
 
 XIV. MORNING IN MEXICO CITY 72 
 
 XV. CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 79 
 
 XVI. GABRIEL'S HOME-COMING 89 
 
 XVII. THE BOYS HAVE AN ADVENTURE .... 98 
 
 XVIII. MANUEL'S FATHER 102 
 
 XIX. SIGHT- SEEING WITH SENOR GABRIEL . . .105 
 
 XX. JUAN'S LETTER 112
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Manuel and Benito . . . . FRONTISPIECE 
 
 Burro Carrying a Load of Pottery . . . Page 13 
 
 Old Juana Making Tortillas .... "28 
 
 The House Where Benito Lived . . . " 33 
 
 Washing Clothes in the River . . . " 56 
 
 Carrying Luncheon-Baskets .... "56 
 
 Pepita in the Gateway . . . . . 58 
 
 " Many Burros Toiling Patiently over the 
 
 Plain" "64 
 
 Patio in the House of Sefiora Gomez . "72 
 
 Market-Place in Mexico City .... "99
 
 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MANUEL'S BAND 
 
 Nowhere, save among the brown children of 
 Mexico, could ten little boys have gathered so 
 quietly for such a noisy game. 
 
 It was Benito who called them together, and 
 Manuel who lined them up against the hacienda 
 wall. 
 
 " Vamonos ! All aboard, boys ! " 
 
 The call in Benito's soft Spanish was taken up 
 and echoed by one after another of the band, wher- 
 ever it found them. 
 
 Some of the boys were bouncing ball, others ly- 
 ing idly under the trees. All answered the call and 
 hurried toward the gateway where Manuel and 
 Benito were waiting for them. 
 
 There were three who heard as they played leap- 
 frog in front of the blacksmith's forge. They 
 straightened themselves and turned in the direction 
 of the others.
 
 2 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 The largest of the three repeated the call, " All 
 aboard, boys ! " but he made no move to follow. 
 Instead, he put a hand upon the shoulder of each 
 of his two companions, holding them when they 
 would have run after the others. 
 
 His face was heavy and sullen looking, and his 
 voice hard as he said, " Tell me, Pedro, why must 
 we run the moment Benito Diaz calls ? " 
 
 " Because it is Manuel who wants us," answered 
 Pedro. 
 
 " Yes, Juan," spoke the other boy eagerly, " let 
 us hurry! Perhaps Manuel has the burros ready 
 for us." 
 
 Juan turned angrily to Jose. " More likely he 
 will make burros of us, by driving us about," he 
 said. " Let us stay here and play leap-frog as we 
 were doing before Benito called." 
 
 " All aboard, boys ! " came the call again from 
 the gate, and with an answering call, Pedro and 
 Jose shook off Juan's hand and ran quickly to join 
 the others, whose voices rose in happy chatter. 
 
 Juan, " Black Juan " the boys called him because 
 of his scowling face, followed slowly, kicking little 
 stones out of his path. It was easy to see that there 
 was rebellion in his heart, for his scowl was heavier 
 than usual. 
 
 In the meantime, Pedro and Jose had joined the 
 group by the adobe gateway. " Here we are,"
 
 MANUEL S BAND 3 
 
 they said, not to Benito who called them, but 
 to the larger boy who stood outside the gate. 
 
 It was Manuel, the leader of the band, who, with- 
 out waiting for the reluctant Juan, said quietly, 
 " All aboard ! " and the nine boys ranged themselves 
 against the high wall. 
 
 The bright Mexican sun looked down upon a 
 pleasant scene in that Tlaxcalan valley. 
 
 A rolling plain covered with maguey and corn 
 fields stretched away from the white adobe wall. 
 Inside the wall rose the low buildings of the haci- 
 enda. Against the wall stood a line of ragged little 
 Mexican Indian boys. 
 
 From the foot of the line, to which he had been 
 crowded by the others, Pedro looked far and wide 
 with a disappointed face. " Where are the bur- 
 ros ? " he asked. 
 
 " Stupid ! Who said anything about burros ? " 
 asked Benito from the head of the line. 
 
 " Jose," answered Pedro. " Jose said perhaps 
 Manuel would have the burros ready." 
 
 " Manuel would not have them ready ; he would 
 tell me, and I would have them ready," said Benito, 
 turning- a cart-wheel for joy. 
 
 Pedro looked as if he were at his wits' end be- 
 tween disappointment at not seeing the burros and 
 bewilderment at trying to understand Benito's 
 words.
 
 4 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 " But if the burros were here," he said, obstin- 
 ately, " it would be Manuel who would have them 
 here." 
 
 " Very well, Stupid," answered Benito, seeing 
 that Pedro thought him of little use except to ex- 
 plain. " The burros have all gone to the station 
 with loads of corn. Manuel could have no burros 
 this morning, so we are going to play Cat and 
 Rat/' 
 
 Pedro's face grew cheerful at once. Next to 
 burro-riding he liked to be the cat in the game of 
 Cat and Rat. " Let me be the cat," he cried. 
 
 " No," said Manuel, " we must count out for it," 
 and he began pointing his finger at one boy after an- 
 other, saying: 
 
 " De una, de dola, 
 De tela, canela." 
 
 The choice fell upon big Pedro to be the rat, 
 and by counting out again little Benito was chosen 
 for the cat. Then the boys formed a ring with the 
 rat inside and the cat outside, and the game began ; 
 the cat trying to break the ring and catch the rat. 
 
 Juan took his place in sullen silence while all the 
 others scuffled and pushed one another good- 
 naturedly in finding places to their liking. 
 
 Benito threw himself again and again upon the 
 clasped hands, but to no purpose. The circle bent
 
 MANUEL S BAND 5 
 
 as it swayed back and forth, but it did not break. 
 
 Big Pedro watched the struggle with a slow 
 smile on his flat face. Often he said, " Non! " as 
 Benito was pushed back and forth. Sometimes, 
 when the boy almost broke a link in the chain, it 
 would be " Si ! " only to be changed to " Non ! " 
 again, as the hands tightened and drove Benito 
 back. 
 
 No one heard Pedro. The boys were all intent 
 upon the motions of the cat. " Here, old cat, here 
 is a weak place. Try this ! " was their shout ; but 
 Benito never found it weak enough to break 
 through. 
 
 Suddenly the rat could wait for the cat no 
 longer. Pedro gave a roar like a gentle bull and 
 threw himself upon a pair of hands. They fell 
 apart under his weight and left an open space. 
 
 " Here, little Benito," he cried, " come quick ! 
 Here is a chance for you to catch me ! " 
 
 But the boys closed upon Benito like bees, and 
 now he was the rat, inside the circle, while Pedro, 
 outside the ring, found himself the cat. 
 
 Then it was that Manuel proved his leadership. 
 
 Where before there had been only play, every- 
 thing now became in earnest. The laughing and 
 careless chattering ceased and every boy looked to 
 the leader for directions. There was a pushing to- 
 gether of two slender boys, and a stretching apart
 
 6 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 of two sturdy ones. Jose was changed into Mar- 
 tin's place, and Manuel diverted Pedro's attention 
 while the change was made. 
 
 Or, just as Pedro thought himself breaking 
 through, in some way he found himself somewhere 
 else, beginning all over again. There had been a 
 quick signal from Manuel, a sudden clamor from the 
 boys, and the slow-thinking Pedro had been con- 
 fused. 
 
 It was a long game. The moment arrived when 
 he was ready to give up the struggle, but at that 
 moment Juan's treachery gave the battle to him. 
 
 Pedro, tired out, threw himself half-heartedly 
 upon Juan's and Jose's clasped hands. Juan 
 loosened, instead of tightening his hold, and the 
 link broke, the cat jumping upon the rat with a 
 shout.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PEDRO RIDES A BURRO 
 
 It had been a hard-won victory, but even slow 
 Pedro knew that it was not his. 
 
 " It belongs to Manuel," he said. " I would 
 have given up, but Manuel would never have done 
 so." 
 
 " That is true," said Jose. " Juan let go of my 
 hand when Pedro fell upon us." 
 
 The boys looked indignantly at Juan. Angry 
 words rose from them all, until the boy, feeling 
 himself in disgrace with the band, turned and 
 skulked away. 
 
 But Pedro sprang after him. Pedro was never 
 slow in his anger, and now he had become roused 
 to punish the offender. He threw Black Juan into 
 the dirt, fell upon his body and lifted his fist to 
 strike the boy, when Manuel interfered. 
 
 " Use him for your burro, Pedro," he said, " and 
 let him put you down at the blacksmith's forge." 
 
 So it came about that Juan found himself doing 
 the very thing he had feared when the game began. 
 
 It was a common thing to see one boy play burro 
 7
 
 8 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 for another, but it was usually as a forfeit, and not 
 as a punishment. 
 
 Juan's heart was fierce with anger as he crawled 
 the long distance over the ground between the gate 
 and the forge, carrying Pedro on his back. He 
 could not throw the boy off. When he tried to do 
 so, the band laughed to see Pedro dig his heels into 
 the burro's sides, until Juan was glad to go on. 
 They went past the walls of the great casa, past the 
 church, store, and school-buildings, and past those 
 buildings where the corn and other provisions were 
 stored. 
 
 The earth over which he crawled was worn bare 
 with the passing of many feet. Over this earth, 
 rough with pebbles, Juan crawled with his load, 
 while the birds in the trees sang as if in mockery. 
 
 A charcoal burner, driving his own heavily- 
 loaded burro through the gate, laughed at the sight 
 and said, " He would make a good match for my 
 old Sancho." 
 
 In front of an open doorway an Indian woman 
 crooned a song before her charcoal fire to make 
 the pot boil sooner. Juan thought she sang to 
 shame him. 
 
 He would have liked to hide out of sight among 
 the shrubbery by the duck pond, but Pedro drove 
 him on with hard blows from his fist. The other 
 boys called scornful words after him, and their
 
 PEDRO RIDES A BURRO 9 
 
 laughter grew louder as Juan, hot and tired, moved 
 more slowly. 
 
 One called above the others, " He is a lepero ! " 
 and Manuel, hearing him, interfered once more. 
 
 " It is enough," he said in his short way. " He 
 is one of us, and we have no leperos among the 
 band." To Pedro he added, " Let him go." 
 
 Pedro sprang to the ground and set the tired boy 
 free. 
 
 Juan rose, and so kindly had Manuel said, " He 
 is one of us," that Juan felt a change in his heart. 
 No tramp could have felt more miserable and 
 vengeful than he, while he was crawling as Pedro's 
 burro, but that force in Manuel which held him 
 chief of the band had conquered Juan at last. 
 
 It was a master's voice that sentenced him to 
 play the burro. It was a master's voice that called 
 to the best in Juan, when Manuel said quietly, " We 
 have no leperos among the band." 
 
 A silence fell upon the boys. In the silence, 
 Juan looked at Manuel and the look was like that 
 of a grateful dog. From that moment he rebelled 
 no more. The sun shone over the hacienda walls 
 and filled his heart with happiness. 
 
 Just then the great bell in the tower rang out the 
 hour of noon. The peons crowded through the 
 gate, returning from their labor in the fields, and 
 the boys joined them for their daily lunch.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 It was a queer-looking group of Indian boys that 
 separated to join their peon fathers at the noon-day 
 lunch. 
 
 Not one among them wore a whole garment save 
 Manuel. Thanks to his careful old grandmother, 
 Juana, his blouse and trousers were clean and 
 whole. Thanks to his own pride he wore a som- 
 brero on his head, and that also was clean and 
 whole. 
 
 Every Mexican man and boy who can buy or beg 
 one, wears a sombrero. Looking over the ten who 
 made up what was known as " Manuel's Band," its 
 rank showed at once in the pitiful fact that only 
 one other boy beside Manuel wore any part of a 
 sombrero. 
 
 That boy was Benito Diaz. 
 
 Benito's sombrero, however, was now only the 
 crown of one. It had parted company with its brim 
 many weeks before. Benito's blouse and trousers, 
 also, were torn and weather-worn. 
 10
 
 THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN II 
 
 Once in a great while old Juana caught the boy 
 and changed his rags for something clean and 
 whole. Then for a few days he rivalled Manuel 
 in the eyes of the band. He slept at night wrapped 
 in the half of a dirty scrape on the floor of his 
 father's hut, where many others also slept. 
 
 For his daily food he ate what has been the food 
 of Mexicans for hundreds of years, corn-cake and 
 beans. Instead of corn-cake and beans he called it 
 tortillas and frijoles. 
 
 Sometimes he fried his tortillas for himself, 
 sometimes he took them from old Juana's hand, 
 and sometimes he went without. 
 
 " It is no matter," he would say merrily, when 
 Manuel offered him a dish of frijoles for dessert, 
 " I am not hungry so long as the sun shines and 
 the earth is covered with flowers." 
 
 The Mexican sun is almost always shining, and 
 the Mexican earth covered with beautiful flowers ; 
 and, certainly, Benito's laughing face never looked 
 hungry. 
 
 Perhaps he was too busy attending to Manuel's 
 wants, ever to know any want of his own. Not 
 that Manuel said much about his wants to Benito, 
 for that would drive the sunshine from his face, 
 and one missed the sunshine when it went from 
 Benito's face. 
 
 It was when Manuel lay quietly watching the
 
 12 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 clouds drift over the mountain-top, as if he would 
 like to follow after them, that Benito felt the time 
 was ripe to attend to Manuel's wants. 
 
 Once or twice, at such times, it happened that 
 Manuel's voice spoke the longing in his eyes. 
 
 " On the farther side of the mountain lies the 
 great City of Mexico," he told the wondering 
 Benito. And Benito answered vaguely, " Si, Man- 
 uel." He would have said " Yes, Manuel," if the 
 other had told him that George Washington was 
 still alive and lived in a great hacienda on the far- 
 ther side of the mountain. 
 
 So he said, " Si, Manuel," and waited, watching 
 a group of mounted police as they turned and 
 wheeled in the distance. 
 
 Manuel continued, " Somewhere near the house 
 of our President there is a school where generals 
 are made. I should like to go to that school." 
 
 This was the longing that Benito had seen and 
 puzzled over in the boy's far-away look. 
 
 In all Benito's ten years he had never reasoned 
 much, but it did not take him long to come to a con- 
 clusion. Manuel's love for fine clothes must be at 
 the bottom of the trouble, he thought. No doubt 
 the bright red scrapes worn by the mounted police 
 when they rode over the plains had taken his fancy. 
 
 Benito's common sense told him that a boy who 
 owned only half a sombrero could never manage
 
 THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN 13 
 
 to find a red scrape, so he turned his thoughts to 
 the mounted police. 
 
 There were plenty of burros to be had for the 
 asking when they were not carrying the hacienda 
 loads, and there were plenty of boys, children of 
 the peon laborers, to ride them. 
 
 Benito decided that Manuel should become a 
 general at once. 
 
 That was how it came about that Juan, Pedro, 
 Jose, Benito, and six other boys, found themselves 
 formed into a sort of company, which became known 
 in time as " Manuel's Band." 
 
 Whenever Benito saw Manuel's eyes follow the 
 clouds over the mountain-tops, he called the ten 
 together. They were often to be seen playing 
 Mexican games ; leap-frog, known in Mexico as 
 burro-corrido, or the game which the Spaniards 
 carried to Mexico when Cortez conquered the coun- 
 try four hundred years ago, the game of bull fight. 
 
 But the game the boys liked best was to mount 
 the burros and gallop out over the plains. 
 
 What riders they were ! The poor burros hardly 
 knew themselves as they were driven here and 
 there while the boys lassoed one of the band, or 
 tried to pull him from his seat. 
 
 It was a life that Benito loved. That which lay 
 beyond the mountain had no interest for him. He 
 never gave it a thought, and little by little it became
 
 14 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 his great aim to keep Manuel from thinking of it. 
 Manuel led the band, but Benito led Manuel. 
 
 At the railroad station of Santa Ana, three miles 
 away from the hacienda, the train guard called in 
 Spanish, " Vamonos, All aboard ! " when it was 
 time for the train to start. 
 
 The band took the word for its own use. 
 " Vamonos ! " Benito's soft voice would call, and 
 the boys' bare feet would run from the far corners 
 of the hacienda enclosure to the spot where Manuel 
 waited for them. 
 
 " All aboard ! " he would say quietly from under 
 his sombrero, and they would range themselves 
 along the high wall. 
 
 The great Spaniard, Cortez, when he took away 
 their liberty, took everything else from the people 
 of Mexico. He tore down the wonderful palaces and 
 temples, where monarchs had held royal court, and 
 laid out great farms. On these farms, or haciendas 
 as they are called, the Mexican Indians work to- 
 day. These humble Indians are the descendants of 
 a race that was once among the proudest on the 
 earth. 
 
 The hacienda where Manuel and his ten playmates 
 lived belonged to Don Felipe Gomez. 
 
 At the time this hacienda was built, four hun- 
 dred years before, the Spaniards were still fighting 
 to establish themselves in the country. To secure
 
 THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN 15 
 
 themselves from the attacks of the Indians they 
 built great walls all around the settlement of 
 houses, forming a protected village. 
 
 This was also a village for protection. At night 
 anyone within sound of the great bell in the tower 
 could enter the enclosure and find hospitality in the 
 casa, where there was always food and a bed for 
 the traveller. 
 
 Outside the walls, between the little village and 
 the distant snow-covered mountains, were low hills 
 and long valleys. Hundreds of acres of pulque 
 plants and corn dotted these hills. 
 
 Mile after mile stretched away before the white 
 mountains lifted their peaks and yet Manuel's eyes 
 seldom rested before they reached the mountain- 
 tops. 
 
 Benito could never understand why the boy must 
 always look so high. " See, Manuel," he would 
 urge, " from the very gateway there begins a pleas- 
 ant path for your feet. Here are more flowers on 
 the ground than there are stars in tfre sky." 
 
 But Manuel would answer, " We can always have 
 flowers for the picking, but to get to the stars one 
 must climb to the mountain-top." 
 
 " Of course, Stupid," Benito would reply, " there 
 is no other way." But for the life of him he could 
 not see why Manuel should want stars when there 
 were so many flowers.
 
 16 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 Every event, big or little, that made up the daily 
 life of the hacienda, was to Benito like the picking 
 of flowers. 
 
 First, there was the ringing of the bell in the 
 tower. At the sound, all the peons took their way 
 in a long slow procession through the gate and went 
 to their work in the fields. There were hundreds 
 of these men whose fathers and grandfathers be- 
 fore them had answered to the sound of the same 
 bell. 
 
 After the long procession had passed, there were 
 the many industries of the hacienda to interest the 
 boy. There was the blacksmith's forge with its 
 never idle smith, and the store where there was al- 
 ways an Indian buying or selling, an Indian coming 
 or going to his home on the mountain. 
 
 Then there was the church with its open door, 
 and the school ; but Benito seldom went near the 
 school. In fact, he said he would never go there 
 if he could help it. It was a good enough place for 
 little girls, with their skirts to their heels, their hair 
 braided and tied with red tape and covered with a 
 reboso. They were well out of the way from early 
 morning until night in just such a place. 
 
 Benito sometimes held Manuel still outside the 
 door to listen to the sound of their study. Then, 
 after a moment, the two would creep silently away, 
 knowing very well that unless they chose to go to
 
 THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN I/ 
 
 the school themselves, they too must soon join the 
 long procession that passed through the gate to go 
 to work in the fields. 
 
 It was the dread of just such a future that turned 
 Manuel's eyes to the mountain-top and his longing 
 thoughts to the great city and the military school. 
 
 At times he doubled his fists and said to himself, 
 " It shall never be ! I will die before I will become a 
 peon to work in the fields and drink pulque."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 DONNA HULITA'S BOOK 
 
 One day Manuel read the story of Benito Juarez. 
 It was a strange way in which he found the book 
 that told the life of that wonderful Indian. 
 
 The great casa where Don Felipe lived was 
 seldom open to the children of the peons. The 
 servants of the household lived within the casa and 
 mingled but little with those outside. 
 
 One day, when the great doors happened to be 
 opened wide, Manuel looked through and saw the 
 fountain playing in the patio in the center. It was 
 as if he were suddenly lifted to the mountain-top 
 and found it within his power to pass down on the 
 other side. 
 
 Without waiting a moment he slipped through 
 the portal and stood among the beautiful flowers 
 and fruit trees. It was another world to Manuel, 
 but he had always been sure that there was such a 
 world. 
 
 Columns twined with, flowers formed arcades 
 about the patio. Looking through the arcades he 
 saw beautiful rooms opening inward into the house. 
 18
 
 DONNA HULITA'S BOOK 19 
 
 He walked boldly into the most beautiful of 
 these rooms and found himself looking into Donna 
 Hulita's face. Donna Hulita was Don Felipe's 
 wife, and seldom spoke to the children of the peons, 
 but she spoke to Manuel. 
 
 Perhaps the boy's clean blouse attracted her. 
 Perhaps she liked the graceful way in which he 
 took his sombrero from his head and held it while 
 he looked at her. Perhaps she could not help her- 
 self, for he was very handsome. He held his head 
 straight and looked at her as proudly as if he were 
 really a general. 
 
 " Buenos dias ! " said she. 
 
 Manuel answered with the same softly spoken 
 words, " Good morning, Sefiora," and never took 
 his eyes from her face. Donna Hulita was the 
 handsomest lady he had ever seen, the handsomest 
 and the proudest. 
 
 She asked him many questions, his name, his 
 age, and in which hut his father and mother lived. 
 
 He answered briefly, as a don would have done. 
 His father had never been seen since the day he 
 brought Manuel, a tiny baby, and placed him in 
 Grandmother Juana's arms. His mother died when 
 he was a baby, up among the mountains where she 
 lived with her own people. She had never seen 
 Don Felipe's hacienda. 
 
 Donna Hulita listened to what he said and
 
 2O MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 looked at him a long time in silence. At last she 
 took a little book from the table. " Take this," she 
 said, " and when you have read it bring it back to 
 me again." 
 
 Then she sent him away, back to the band with 
 its games and burro-riding, back to his mountain- 
 gazing. But he took the book with him, and it led 
 to many things.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BENITO JUAREZ 
 
 Manuel went to find Benito as soon as he left 
 Donna Hulita and the casa. 
 
 " Look ! " he said, opening the book before the 
 boy's wondering eyes. " We must learn to read." 
 
 Benito looked the book well through before he 
 said anything. In one of the pictures was a man 
 on horseback, in several others were guns and the 
 smoke of guns. Benito looked at the pictures with 
 pleased eyes. 
 
 " They are good to see," he said at last, " but 
 the wooden bench in the school is not good to feel 
 all day." 
 
 " There is no other way," said Manuel briefly. 
 
 "Of course there isn't," said Benito crossly. 
 "If one would get words out of a book, he must 
 go into the school ; but he would die before many 
 days." Then the thought came to him that the bot- 
 tom of the duck pond was a good place for the mis- 
 chievous book. 
 
 He urged Manuel to throw it into the water. 
 Manuel shook his head and took the book away 
 
 21
 
 22 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 from him. " Will you come also to the school ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " No, I will not," declared Benito stoutly, and he 
 warned Manuel that everything would go wrong as 
 soon as he learned to read. 
 
 Manuel, however, hunted up kind-hearted little 
 Pepita and asked if she could read the book to him. 
 But Pepita had been only three weeks in school 
 herself, and half that time had been spent in cry- 
 ing. She was only five years old, and the wooden 
 bench felt so hard that some days she sat most of 
 the time on the floor. 
 
 " Don't go to the school," she said to Manuel. 
 " It is bad for the eyes to cry so much." 
 
 Manuel, boy that he was, felt a man's pity for 
 the little maid's trouble, but a boy's scorn for her 
 pity for him. He told her that he should surely go 
 to the school until he could read Donna Hulita's 
 book, and then she offered him the use of her slate 
 and pencil. 
 
 " Of what use is something else? " he asked her. 
 " It is the book I must read." 
 
 " There are signs that you must make all day on 
 the slate, when you are not reading," answered lit- 
 tle Pepita. 
 
 Manuel drew a long breath and looked at the 
 mountain-top. So going to school was one way 
 that led to the stars.
 
 BENITO JUAREZ 23 
 
 He made up his mind that he would make signs 
 until the teacher's eyes should ache for their num- 
 ber, and he would learn to read. 
 
 He said nothing to old Juana, but took his place 
 on the wooden bench and held his slate and pencil 
 as the little girls held theirs, and made the signs. 
 But he found to his surprise that each sign held a 
 meaning, and the days were not so long as he had 
 feared they would be. 
 
 He saw Benito outside the door. After a few 
 days he seldom looked that he did not see the boy 
 busily marking in the sand at first; later he was 
 fashioning with his hands little figures in clay. 
 
 One day Manuel found that while he had been 
 inside, learning to read, Benito, outside, had made 
 the whole school-room scene in clay. There were 
 the blackboard, study-desks, benches and teacher's 
 table in the scene. Yes, and there in one corner 
 stood Manuel himself in the dunce's place. 
 
 Benito's skilful fingers had done the work of an 
 artist. 
 
 Manuel laughed with pleasure, but he said to the 
 boy, " I am no dunce, Benito. The teacher told me 
 to-day that I am learning to read with great speed." 
 Then he turned his eyes upon his friend. " You, 
 Benito, might become a great artist in Mexico City." 
 
 Benito suddenly spoke out crossly, saying, " I do 
 not wish to become anything but your playmate
 
 24 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 once more, and how can we be playmates if we do 
 not play together ? " 
 
 Manuel could say nothing to comfort him then, 
 but the day came when at last he finished reading 
 the book, and went to Benito with kindling eyes. 
 
 " It is the story of a great man, Benito Juarez," 
 he told the boy. " He was an Indian boy as poor 
 as we are. He wore ragged clothes, and no som- 
 brero, and he studied. He learned to read and he 
 became, as President Porfirio Diaz did also, one of 
 the greatest men in Mexico ! " 
 
 Benito looked at Manuel and felt the fire of his 
 spirit. " Where did he live when he was a little 
 boy ? " he asked. 
 
 " Down in the south of Mexico," said Manuel, 
 and repeated, " He was an Indian boy as poor as 
 we are, and he wore ragged clothes ! " 
 
 Benito caught Manuel's thought. " What shall 
 you do?" he asked softly. 
 
 " I shall do what Donna Hulita tells me to do," 
 said Manuel. " I am going to the casa and ask to 
 see her." But Donna Hulita was not there. She 
 had gone over the mountain to Mexico City, and 
 there was nothing for Manuel to do but wait for 
 her return.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JU ANA'S BEDSTEAD 
 
 Benito "was happy once more. He spirited Man- 
 uel away from school and the two boys galloped 
 out over the plain on their burros. 
 
 " Did you learn nothing but Benito Juarez in 
 the school ? " asked the boy Benito curiously, as 
 they stopped their burros by the wall that ran beside 
 the great maguey field. 
 
 Manuel laughed. " No, I learned that in the 
 country to the north of ours there are people who 
 never saw a burro," he answered. 
 
 Benito looked as if he thought Manuel had sud- 
 denly lost his wits. 
 
 " That cannot be," he said. " No country could 
 get along without burros." But Manuel insisted 
 that it was true. 
 
 " Then," said Benito, when at last he was con- 
 vinced, " I am willing to cross the mountain with 
 you and see the world, if it is such a queer world 
 that burros have not travelled over the whole of it." 
 
 " Look ! " said Manuel suddenly, pointing to a 
 peon who was beating an overburdened little ani- 
 25
 
 26 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 mal among the pulque plants. " His burro is more 
 of a man than he is. That is what we Indian boys 
 must become if we stay here, a beast like cruel 
 Sancho." 
 
 " Well," said Benito carelessly, " if it is the cus- 
 tom, what is to be done about it ? " 
 
 " If I were the President," said Manuel, " I 
 would do something about it. I would begin by 
 stopping all pulque from being made." 
 
 " Good ! " said Benito. " Then we should have 
 the more flowers." 
 
 Benito was right. The flower of the pulque 
 plant is not allowed to blossom. If it should, there 
 would be no pulque, and pulque is the national 
 drink of Mexico. 
 
 It was little Jose who said one time, " If I can 
 have a sombrero, a pulque plant, and a burro, when 
 I am a man', I shall be rich enough." 
 
 The boys were shivering with the cold when he 
 said it, but Benito was the only one who thought to 
 say, " I would rather have a scrape now." 
 
 A Mexican man can wrap himself in his scrape 
 when he is cold; but few children of the peons can 
 own one. The scrape is used as a shawl by day 
 and a blanket by night, but as not one of the band 
 owned such a thing, they had to get along as well 
 as they could without it. 
 
 As Manuel and Benito sat on their burros beside
 
 JUANA'S BEDSTEAD 27 
 
 the pulque field, the sun beat down upon them so 
 fiercely that it was hard to believe that they could 
 ever be cold in Mexico. 
 
 Suddenly, in the distance, they heard the merry 
 shouts of the boys. 
 
 Pedro and the others had discovered their ab- 
 sence and were galloping toward them, mounted 
 also on burros. 
 
 " Let us hide ! " said Benito, always ready for 
 excitement. Slipping from their animals, they 
 drew into the shelter of a few tangled bushes grow- 
 ing by the roadside. 
 
 The band drew nearer, sitting their burros as if 
 they were wild horses of the plains. At the bushes 
 they stopped so suddenly that there would have 
 been broken bones, had they not been Indian boys, 
 who had ridden on burros almost ever since they 
 were babies. 
 
 Pedro peered anxiously about. " Where have 
 they gone?" he asked fretfully, just as Juan's 
 sharper eyes discovered the two boys. 
 
 If Pedro's voice had not been so soft, the cry that 
 he gave on seeing Manuel once more among them, 
 would have been a war-whoop. 
 
 " Come over to the station," he urged. " There 
 is a train-load of pilgrims going to Sacra Monte." 
 
 Immediately the boys were off again, Benito and 
 Manuel among them, in the direction of Santa
 
 28 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 Ana ; but they were destined not to reach the little 
 station that day. 
 
 Beyond the maguey field a mangy dog ran beside 
 the road. One of the boys threw his lasso at the 
 dog, but it coiled about the feet of Benito's burro 
 instead. The little animal doubled up and rolled 
 to the ground with his rider underneath. 
 
 All the boys immediately jumped off their burros 
 and gathered around the fallen one, who did not 
 stir when they called to him. 
 
 Manuel stood above him with a frightened face 
 and directed the band. " You, Juan, must ride 
 ahead and find the doctor," he said. " You, Jose, 
 go to Grandmother Juana and tell her to get the bed- 
 stead ready. You, Pedro, must help me lift Benito 
 on to the burro." 
 
 Pedro could not have lifted the boy alone without 
 hurting him, but together he and Manuel put Benito 
 carefully upon the burro's back, and then they 
 started slowly for the hacienda. The others rode 
 ahead with Jose to give Manuel's message to the 
 old Indian woman. 
 
 They found her in front of the great oven with 
 her neighbor Maria, making tortillas and frying 
 them over a little charcoal fire. She looked at the 
 boys in surprise as they clattered along the ground 
 and stopped in a group before her. 
 
 " You must get the bedstead ready for Manuel,
 
 Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York 
 
 Old Juana Making Tortillas. Page 28.
 
 JUANA S BEDSTEAD 2O, 
 
 he wishes to put Benito on it so that the doctor may 
 look at him," said Jose very loudly, for old Juana 
 was quite deaf. 
 
 " Benito is very sick," shouted one of the boys, 
 seeing that she did not comprehend. 
 
 " That is what I always said," nodded the old 
 woman. " His clothes have holes in them always. 
 I said he would be sick." 
 
 " No, no ! " shouted another boy. " He has been 
 hurt. The doctor is coming and you must put him 
 on your bedstead." 
 
 " The doctor must see my bedstead ! " said Juana. 
 " That is good. It is a fine bedstead." 
 
 They tried again, and at last she understood ; but 
 she shook her head and said, " No, it can never be. 
 No one has ever lain upon the bedstead since it was 
 put into my hut." 
 
 " Benito must lie there," shouted Jose. " Man- 
 uel says so." 
 
 " But it is not the custom," answered the old 
 woman. " I cannot permit it, because we Indians 
 always sleep on the floor." 
 
 Jose begged, but Juana's head shook steadily. 
 " It is no use," she said, " because my fiesta clothes 
 are on the bedstead. He must lie on the floor. It 
 is the place for the son of a peon." 
 
 When Manuel arrived she pointed to a clean mat 
 placed on the hard floor at the foot of the bed-
 
 3O MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 stead. " Put him there," she said. But Manuel 
 put the fiesta clothes on the mat, and between them, 
 he and Pedro put Benito on the bedstead. 
 
 The doctor arrived at the same time. He looked 
 the child over and found that he had a broken ankle 
 and must be kept perfectly still. 
 
 " Leave him on the bedstead," commanded the 
 doctor, and added, " I will come again when he 
 opens his eyes." 
 
 Benito's eyes opened after a couple of hours, but 
 Manuel was the only one with sense enough to run 
 to tell the doctor of it. 
 
 He came again, felt all Benito's bones, wrapped 
 his broken ankle in bandages, gave medicine, and 
 ordered the boy to lie on the bedstead for three 
 weeks. 
 
 " Afterwards," said the doctor with a wave of 
 his hand, " he will be the same as always." 
 
 Poor old Juana saw it all, was told what the doc- 
 tor said, and became quite dazed. Benito might be 
 the same as always, she thought, but how about the 
 bedstead ! 
 
 It had never been used since Don Felipe's mother 
 gave it to her one time when house-cleaning was 
 going on up at the great casa. A most beautiful 
 spring and mattress came with it. Juana stood the 
 bedstead in the corner of her hut and hung her 
 choicest pieces of pottery above it on the wall.
 
 JUAN A S BEDSTEAD 3! 
 
 At night, she lay down on the floor beside it, 
 wrapped in a warm scrape. Nothing but the fiesta 
 clothes had ever been allowed to lie upon it. If a 
 peon's child were to lie upon it for three weeks it 
 could never be the same again ! She was in despair. 
 
 Manuel paid no attention to her complainings, 
 but when night came he fried tortillas for her over 
 the charcoal fire. 
 
 Her heart softened at the sight. No one had 
 ever done it for her before. " But it is not the 
 custom," she said faintly. 
 
 Manuel leaned against her with his arm about 
 her neck, his young cheek against her old one. He 
 said nothing, but there was no need that he should. 
 She was quite ready to let him have his way. 
 
 Later, after Benito got well and left the bed- 
 stead, Manuel insisted that she should sleep upon 
 it, and in her old heart Juana was glad to let him 
 have his way.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TORTILLAS AND TOMATO SAUCE 
 
 Benito, lying upon the bedstead, watched Manuel 
 who sat on the step in the open doorway. Manuel 
 had collected a great quantity of feathers from the 
 hens and roosters. He was tying these feathers 
 to the end of a long slender bamboo stick to make 
 a duster. 
 
 His fingers needed to work with great skill to 
 make the feathers fast to the stick, else they slipped 
 off and he had to begin his work all over again. 
 
 " Look at him work, he must have a humming- 
 bird in his belt," said Benito with a pleased laugh, 
 as Manuel started his task for the third time. 
 
 Manuel laughed also to hear Benito's tongue re- 
 peat the good old Mexican proverb. " You can say 
 nothing, lazy Benito," he answered. " When you 
 have lain on the bedstead one more week, you will 
 need a humming-bird in your own belt to make you 
 work." 
 
 Benito had already lain on the bed two weeks, 
 and to his own great surprise, found himself still 
 alive. At the time they told him that he must lie 
 32
 
 Copyright by Underwood <V Unaerwooa, i 
 
 The House Where Benito Lived. Page 33.
 
 TORTILLAS AND TOMATO SAUCE 33 
 
 there three weeks he thought that the second week 
 would surely find him dead, and it filled him with 
 no end of astonishment that the days went by 
 quickly and pleasantly. 
 
 Perhaps the reason was that for the first time 
 in his life he found himself a person of importance. 
 Not only did Manuel and Grandmother Juana wait 
 upon him, but the boys of the band brought little 
 gifts to him, and the peon men and women stopped 
 to greet him as they went to work in the fields. 
 
 In the house where his father lived, Benito was 
 only one of twenty. Men, women and children 
 shared with him the dirty little room they called a 
 home. Nor was that all, a flock of hens nested 
 wherever there was a convenient place, usually in 
 the bin of corn that filled one corner. 
 
 Benito's father stopped with the other peons to 
 speak to the boy, and it was hard to believe that the 
 child was the son of such a man. 
 
 The father was one of those peons, that to Man- 
 uel seemed more like a beast than the burro he 
 drove. Benito, on the contrary, had a gentle, deli- 
 cate face, like that of the flowers he loved. His 
 eyes held the sunshine of both flowers and sky 
 when the Mexican sun shines brightest. His heart 
 held nothing but love, yet he loved best that which 
 is sweet and clean. 
 
 That was why he stayed so little near the dirt and
 
 34 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 misery of his father's house, and so much of the 
 time near Manuel, at old Juana's place. He had no 
 mother. Perhaps that was why the old woman 
 made an effort now and then to dress him in clean 
 clothes ; and also why she allowed him to stay on the 
 precious bedstead after Manuel had put him there 
 so carefully. 
 
 One could hardly say how it happened that old 
 Juana was neat and thrifty. She was noted all 
 over the hacienda for her tidy house, her neat per- 
 son and her fine flock of hens. 
 
 The other Indian women envied her the house 
 and the hens, but Juana told them they might have 
 hens just as fine as hers if they would only hang 
 baskets from the lower branches of the trees. Then 
 the hens would have a place to roost at night, where 
 nothing could disturb them. 
 
 As for the house, there were plenty of colored 
 pictures at the store to be had for the asking. She 
 always asked for the tomato-can labels herself, be- 
 cause they were the brightest. 
 
 Benito, from his bed, studied the many labels 
 tacked on the walls, until he knew everything about 
 them except the words. Then he asked Manuel 
 to teach the words to him, which Manuel was glad 
 enough to do at the times when none of the band 
 interrupted. 
 
 The band often came in a body to eat supper by
 
 TORTILLAS AND TOMATO SAUCE 35 
 
 Benito's bedside and chatter about the many things 
 that had happened through the day in the hacienda. 
 
 At such times they sat cross-legged in a circle 
 on the floor. Each boy had a little pile of tor- 
 tillas and a dish of tomato sauce on the floor in 
 front of him. They all took a tortilla in their 
 fingers at the same moment, dipped it in the sauce 
 at the same moment, and ate it greedily. 
 
 Benito laughed at the sight, and Pedro looked 
 to see why the boy was laughing. He saw nothing 
 funny about it ; the peons always ate with their 
 fingers. He got slowly to his feet and gave a cake 
 to the boy on the bed. 
 
 " Eat it," he said. " When you, also, are eat- 
 ing, it will no longer look funny to you." 
 
 " It is good to hear him laugh," said Juan, and 
 would have said more, but old Juana spoke from 
 the doorway. 
 
 " It is not the custom for a peon to eat in bed," 
 she said, " but it seems that all our customs in 
 Mexico are changing." 
 
 Manuel took her by the hand and drew her into 
 a chair near the circle of boys. There were few 
 good chairs in the peons' quarters, but old Juana 
 had one. 
 
 " Tell us about some of the customs in Mexico 
 when you were a girl," he shouted in her ear. 
 
 The boys hushed their chatter and waited for
 
 36 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 her to collect her thoughts. As the old woman 
 looked at their dusky faces, gleaming in the dark 
 shadows of the little room, and saw the quiet figure 
 stretched out on the bed, something sent her 
 thoughts back through the years. 
 
 Her look grew strange and her eyes left the 
 eager faces of the boys. Turning them to the open 
 door she fixed them on the distant mountain, and 
 then on the valley below, where the rising moon 
 was casting black shadows. 
 
 At last her voice rose solemnly, and it seemed 
 to the boys that she might be one of the noble 
 Indian race that peopled Mexico before the 
 Spaniards conquered the country. 
 
 " Over the old highway that runs between the 
 two great volcanoes, Popocatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl, 
 I have seen the Spanish and the French flying 
 in fear before our Indians," she said. 
 
 The boys knew that the old highway of which 
 she spoke led from the coast on the Gulf of Mexico 
 to Mexico City, and they had heard that the armies 
 passing over it in former years were some of the 
 finest the world has ever known. 
 
 That old Juana had seen actual fighting in her 
 young days filled the boys with awe. Her words 
 conjured up a picture in their minds of the splendor 
 of the Indian nation, from which they themselves 
 were descended.
 
 TORTILLAS AND TOMATO SAUCE 37 
 
 Their young blood was stirred at the thought 
 of the noble palaces and temples which might have 
 belonged to their own race had the Spanish con- 
 queror never landed upon the soil of Mexico, the 
 soil their fathers tilled for Don Felipe. 
 
 Pedro half rose to his feet, about to start forth 
 to crush that hateful Spaniard, wherever he might 
 be, but old Juana was speaking once more. 
 
 " Spanish, French, and American ; they have all 
 gone," she said in a prophetic voice, " and the 
 Mexican people has come into its heritage at last." 
 
 She brought her eyes back to the tense faces of 
 the boys. " There are three names to remember," 
 she said ; " that of Miguel Hidalgo, who struck 
 the first blow for Mexican independence ; Benito 
 Juarez, who established it; and Porfirio Diaz, who 
 taught us how to preserve it." 
 
 In the silence that followed her words, Pedro sat 
 back contentedly. " This independence that you 
 speak of," he said in a great shout, " is it something 
 for us all ? " 
 
 She nodded. It seemed that she was tired, for 
 she said nothing more, and there was quiet in the 
 hut for many minutes.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MANUEL, THE TEACHER 
 
 Manuel, at last, took up old Juana's words. 
 " In the school," he said, " the teacher told us 
 many things. She is a person who has travelled 
 to that country where the Spaniards live when they 
 are at home." 
 
 But Pedro interrupted to ask, " Have they a 
 country of their own ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Manuel, " and there they live 
 in very proud houses, such as our President has. 
 They knew many things four hundred years ago 
 that our Indians did not know. Besides, all the 
 tribes of Indians were not against them. The 
 Spaniards forced our own tribe, the Tlaxcalan In- 
 dians, to help them with their plans." 
 
 Pedro became indignant. " Such Indians should 
 have been punished as traitors," he said hotly. 
 But Manuel shook his head. 
 
 " There were many different tribes of Indians 
 then," he said, " just as there are now ; but they 
 were enemies. Now all the tribes are banded to- 
 gether to help each other." 
 38
 
 MANUEL, THE TEACHER 39 
 
 " Is that why we are called the ' United States 
 of Mexico ' ? " asked Jose. 
 
 " Yes," answered Manuel. 
 
 "How did our Indians help Cortez?" asked 
 Pedro. 
 
 " They built boats for Cortez and carried them 
 over the mountains to the lake near Mexico City. 
 This was the capital city of the Aztec tribe which 
 Cortez wished to conquer." 
 
 Pedro looked at Manuel in amazement to hear 
 him state such a monstrous fact so quietly. " It 
 was a shameful thing for Cortez to force his way 
 into a country where he was not wanted," he de- 
 clared. " The Aztecs were a noble race. I have 
 heard it said that they were very brave and strong." 
 
 Manuel smiled. " The teacher said that it was 
 all in the way of progress," he answered. " The 
 Aztecs conquered the people who were here before 
 them, and they believed a stranger was to come who 
 would teach them many new things." 
 
 " How do you know that there were people here 
 before the Aztecs?" asked Jose. 
 
 " Because there are ruins of temples still stand- 
 ing, which neither the Aztecs nor the Spaniards 
 built," answered Manuel. 
 
 H Where are they ? " asked Benito from the bed. 
 
 " There are some down in Oaxaca where Benito 
 Juarez was born," said Manuel. " They are called
 
 40 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 the ruins of Mitla and they were built so strongly 
 that no earthquake has ever shaken them down." 
 
 Pedro looked his astonishment that such things 
 had never been told to him before. 
 
 Manuel continued, " Near the City of the Angels 
 there is a great pyramid, upon which stood a 
 temple, which the Aztecs found when they went to 
 build the City of Mexico. Cortez destroyed the 
 temple and built a Spanish cathedral in its place." 
 
 " Ah," said Pedro, " that Cortez was certainly a 
 bad man, no matter what you say." 
 
 Manuel laughed again. " The teacher said the 
 Spaniards did much for Mexico in the way of 
 progress," he repeated. " They built many cities, 
 and perhaps if it had not been for them we should 
 not have become the United States of Mexico, with 
 our beautiful flag and our good president." 
 
 " Yes, it is a beautiful flag 1 ," said Pedro, " and 
 we can never forget the Aztecs while we keep their 
 eagle flying on it." 
 
 The eagle that Pedro spoke of, keeps fresh in 
 the Mexican mind the story of the wanderings of 
 the Aztec people when they were looking for a 
 place to build their capital city. For more than 
 seven hundred years they had been journeying from 
 place to place ; but at last they received a sign that 
 they were to wander no more. 
 
 They reached the shores of a beautiful lake,
 
 MANUEL, THE TEACHER 4! 
 
 and there, on a small island, they saw an unusually 
 large and splendid eagle. It stood poised upon a 
 plant of prickly cactus, with its wings outspread 
 toward the rising sun, and in its beak it held a 
 serpent. 
 
 The Aztecs accepted the sign, built the city, 
 which is near the City of Mexico, beside the lake, 
 and took the eagle for their emblem. To-day it 
 flies upon the red, white and green of the Mexican 
 flag. 
 
 It was not strange that Pedro felt his heart beat 
 faster when he thought of the flag. " No one shall 
 ever take it away from us again," he said. He 
 stood as he spoke, and looked as if he wished some 
 one would dare to try it that very minute. He 
 felt strong enough to conquer a whole army. 
 
 Juan moved in his chair. He had caught some 
 of Pedro's spirit. " What about Hidalgo, of whom 
 Grandmother Juana spoke first ? " he asked. 
 
 " He was a priest, and he made plans to lead 
 an armed force against the Spaniards, but his plans 
 were all found out before he was ready to strike. 
 
 " He heard of the discovery of his plans at eleven 
 o'clock, on the night of the fifteenth of September, 
 1821. Although he knew that he would very likely 
 be killed in the end, he had the church bells rung, 
 and when all the people ran out of their houses, he 
 met them with a gun in one hand and a torch in
 
 42 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 the other, crying, ' Long live America, and death to 
 bad government ! ' ' 
 
 " Oh, I know those words ! " cried little Jose. 
 " It is ' The Grito.' There is more to it, and our 
 President says the words from the palace where 
 he lives, at just that same time in the evening, 
 every year, on the fifteenth of September. But 
 I did not know why he says it." 
 
 "Was Hidalgo killed?" asked Juan. 
 
 " Yes, in the very next year he was betrayed, 
 captured and beheaded. But the teacher said he had 
 started a fire that was never allowed to die out." 
 
 " I should like to have fought with him," said 
 Juan. 
 
 " There was one peon who became noted for 
 what he did for Hidalgo and Mexico," said Manuel. 
 " There was a great building in one of the cities, 
 and Hidalgo felt that he must capture it, but it 
 was filled with Spaniards who fought him back 
 when he tried to break down the door. 
 
 " Hidalgo called for some one who would be 
 willing to risk his life and set fire to the door. 
 A peon offered to do it. He took a great flat 
 stone from the mountain-side and held it over his 
 back so that nothing thrown down upon him from 
 above could hurt him. Then he carried a fire- 
 brand to the doors and set them afire. 
 
 " They burned, and Hidalgo was able to get
 
 MANUEL, THE TEACHER 43 
 
 inside with his men and force the Spaniards to 
 surrender." 
 
 Juan gave a shout for the peon, and it roused 
 old Juana. " What did you say ? " she asked. 
 
 " Manuel has been telling us what he learned in 
 the school," he shouted in answer. 
 
 She looked at him with a startled face. " When 
 did Manuel go to the school ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 Manuel had never told her that he was going 
 to school, because he did not think there was any 
 need of it. He had always spent his days as he 
 pleased, and he was surprised to see old Juana's 
 look of dismay when he told her now that he had 
 been to the school and learned to read. 
 
 " It was a bad thing to do," she said. 
 
 " Yes," said Benito, " I told him so myself be- 
 fore he went, but it has turned out all right, for 
 he will tell us much that we ought to know." 
 
 Old Juana looked at Manuel strangely, then she 
 went out of the little room to wander under the 
 stars and think by herself. 
 
 The boys also went out, one by one, through 
 the doorway to their cheerless quarters. No Mexi- 
 can ever speaks of his house as a home, but Juana's 
 clean little room with the bright colored labels 
 stuck over the walls was more like a home, with 
 its atmosphere of love, than any other in the 
 hacienda.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 JUANA'S MEMORIES 
 
 When old Juana went back into the room she 
 found both the boys fast asleep. She stood for 
 a long time looking down upon the dark form of 
 Manuel. The moonlight streamed across the floor 
 and touched his strong face, making him look older 
 than he was, because of the shadows. 
 
 Was it only ten years ago, she thought, that she 
 took him from his handsome father and promised 
 to bring him up to be a peon laborer? 
 
 The boy was wrapped in a scrape of many bright 
 colors. His head lay upon a straw mat, and the 
 sight of him was good to old Juana's eyes. She 
 thought of the many times that she had stood so 
 and looked down at him, and her heart grew warm. 
 
 " It is of no use," she muttered at last. " I 
 shall have to tell him. He is different from the 
 others, and he will surely find it out for himself." 
 
 She went into the farthest corner of the room, 
 where she lay down in her own blanket, but not 
 to sleep. Her mind followed step by step the long 
 years of her life, and the many strange sights she 
 had seen. 
 
 In her youth she had been in the midst of fight- 
 44
 
 JUANA'S MEMORIES 45 
 
 ing and bloodshed, and she could have told the 
 boys of many lawless acts that had taken place on 
 the road over which they scampered on the backs 
 of their burros. 
 
 Three times in one day had Don Felipe's father 
 been robbed by bandits between the hacienda and 
 the place where the station stood. It had needed 
 just such an iron hand as that of Porfirio Diaz to 
 crush the spirit of lawlessness that raged for years 
 in Mexico. 
 
 The Indians had been bad, but the white men 
 had also done cruel things. She repeated to her- 
 self the words of an old saying, " The whiter the 
 face, the blacker the heart." 
 
 " It is true ! " she muttered in anger. " The soil 
 of Mexico would cry out in a frenzy if it could speak 
 of the horrible things that have been done in this 
 beautiful country." 
 
 Benito stirred on his bedstead, and called in his 
 sleep for Manuel. The name carried the old 
 woman's thoughts to happier things. There lay the 
 child who had come into her life on the very day 
 of her return from the great Indian fair at Ameca- 
 meca, ten years ago. 
 
 She had bought the scrape which he was wear- 
 ing now from a Saltillo Indian at that fair. It 
 was one of her few treasures, but it pleased her to 
 see it now on the boy. If he had been her own
 
 46 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 child she could not have loved him more fondly. 
 
 She smiled grimly in the dusk of the room when 
 she remembered that at first she had refused to 
 take him from the handsome Spaniard. She had 
 said that she was too old to have the care of a 
 helpless baby. 
 
 The journey to the fair had been long and hard, 
 and she was tired when she reached the hacienda 
 and said that she should never go again. Just then 
 the stranger stood suddenly before her, as if he 
 had been dropped from the skies, and asked her 
 to keep the child which he held in his arms. 
 
 " It is a crazy thought," she had said. " How 
 can you think of asking an old woman to take a 
 baby to bring up? Besides, it is not the custom." 
 
 But it had been of no use. The Spaniards were 
 always a masterful race, and in the end he 
 wheedled the child into her arms, where it stayed. 
 Then he went away, and the rest of the story was 
 as Manuel had told it to Donna Hulita. 
 
 As soon as her old bones were rested from her 
 long journey to the fair, she found that a little 
 baby in her room added greatly to its appearance. 
 
 However, as soon as the baby could roll, he took 
 matters into his own hands by rolling through the 
 doorway and out of doors, where he spent the rest 
 of his days, until Donna Hulita sent him over the 
 mountain.
 
 JUANA'S MEMORIES 47 
 
 Old Juana, lying on the floor with open eyes, 
 could not look far enough into the future to see 
 Donna Hulita doing such a thing. She could only 
 see that when the very next day dawned she must 
 tell Manuel his story, no matter what happened. 
 
 She told him while she patted her tortillas for 
 breakfast. Being so early in the morning, it was 
 cold, and Manuel shivered as he listened to her 
 words and the monotonous sound made by the soft 
 patting of the cakes from one hand to the other. 
 
 If Benito, listening from his bed, had not known 
 the sound so well, he might have thought that all 
 the peon mothers in the hacienda were slapping 
 their babies for the day. But Benito knew the 
 sound, and he knew also that Mexican mothers do 
 not slap their babies. They tie them in the rebosos 
 on the backs of the older sisters, and so dispose 
 of them for hours at a time. 
 
 Many years after that morning, in a far-away city 
 where mothers are less tender-hearted, Benito 
 heard the sound of a mother slapping a child, and 
 there flashed into his memory the scene of that 
 early morning in Mexico. He saw again the open 
 door, the charcoal fire outside, and an Indian 
 woman beside it slapping cakes from one hand to 
 the other, while a handsome boy stood before her, 
 his face tense with feeling.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 DONNA HULITA'S CALL 
 
 As the old woman finished her story, the great 
 gates of the hacienda were suddenly thrown open 
 and Don Felipe's finest pair of horses was driven 
 through, bringing Donna Hulita from Mexico City. 
 
 Manuel looked from the old woman to the car- 
 riage of the younger one. He felt that in some 
 way his life was to be changed, and he shivered 
 again with excitement. Nevertheless, the tortillas 
 tasted very good as he ate them by Benito's bed- 
 side and talked old Juana's story over with his 
 friend. 
 
 Benito watched Manuel's eyes and for once for- 
 got about the band. He, also, felt that their life 
 was to be different. His own eyes suddenly 
 blurred with tears. " I am only a stupid boy," he 
 said, " and have never cared because things were 
 not different, but if you go away to hunt for a 
 father, or anything like that, I shall die." 
 
 Manuel put his head on the bed beside Benito's. 
 " You stupid Benito," he said, " you are always go- 
 ing to die. But if you do, I am going to die, too. 
 48
 
 DONNA HULITA'S CALL 49 
 
 I can do without a father, but I could do nothing 
 without you." 
 
 Then, boy-like, the two began to build air-castles. 
 
 " We will make many feather brushes," said 
 Manuel, " which we will take to the market in 
 Puebla. There we can get enough money for them 
 to carry us to Mexico City." 
 
 Benito's eyes sparkled. " I have heard that the 
 angels helped to build the city of Puebla," he said. 
 
 " It is true," answered Manuel, who of course, 
 believed the story. " That is why it is called ' The 
 City of the Angels.'" 
 
 " Ah," said Benito, with a mighty sigh, " it will 
 be good to sell feather brushes there." 
 
 " After we get to Mexico City," continued 
 Manuel, " we can black shoes until we have earned 
 many pesos, then we can buy some fine clothes and 
 work in an office." 
 
 Benito knocked his head affectionately against 
 Manuel's. " You will think of nothing but fine 
 clothes, old Manuelito," he said. 
 
 For a moment longer they lay with their heads 
 together, and that was the way Donna Hulita 
 found them when she knocked at the open door. 
 
 Manuel went to the door and greeted her quietly 
 enough, but his heart beat its way into his throat. 
 
 " Buenos dias, what a very pleasant room," said 
 Donna Hulita.
 
 5O MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 " It is yours, if you like," answered Manuel, and 
 placed Juana's good chair for her to sit in. 
 
 Old Juana also offered the room and everything 
 in it to her visitor, when she found that Donna 
 Hulita thought the pictures of the red tomatoes 
 very attractive. 
 
 Many things are done in Mexico which are not 
 according to custom, nowadays, old Juana would 
 say, but there is one custom in that country which 
 never varies. When one Mexican admires some- 
 thing which belongs to another, he is told with 
 great politeness that it is his. 
 
 At the time Grandmother Juana accepted the 
 baby as a part of her daily life she spoke to all 
 her friends among the peon women and told them 
 there was a little peon at their service in her house. 
 So are they always courteous among themselves as 
 well as to their masters. And, on the other hand, 
 masters and mistresses treat their servants with 
 the same courtesy. 
 
 When old Juana offered her tomato labels to 
 Donna Hulita, she did not think that the great lady 
 would carry them home with her. Donna Hulita 
 understood. She would do the same thing her- 
 self, should a visitor admire the beautiful paint- 
 ings on the walls of her casa. It is the pleasant 
 way of opening a call in Mexico. 
 
 But this morning Donna Hulita was not really
 
 DONNA HULITA'S CALL 51 
 
 making a call. She had come on very important 
 business. 
 
 She asked for Manuel's story, and Juana could 
 not help thinking how fortunate it was that she 
 had told it to Manuel already, for Donna Hulita 
 had come to take the boy from the little home of 
 Juana's making to something very, grand in the 
 City of Mexico. 
 
 Don Felipe's father, Senor Gomez, lived in 
 Mexico City, and Donna Hulita found, while on 
 her visit, that his wife had taken a fancy to have 
 another page in her service. Donna Hulita had 
 never forgotten the handsome boy who stood so 
 unexpectedly before her one day. She told Seiiora 
 Gomez about him and promised to send the boy 
 to her. 
 
 There was another thought also in Donna Hu- 
 lita's mind. There was a look in Manuel's face 
 which reminded her of some one who had once 
 been very dear to Senora Gomez, but of whom 
 nothing had been heard for many years. She 
 wondered if Senora Gomez would see the same 
 look. 
 
 Donna Hulita wished to have the boy start at 
 once. One of the hacienda overseers was going 
 to Mexico City by train that very day, and Manuel 
 might go with him, she said. 
 
 Donna Hulita had never had any other way than
 
 52 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 her own before, but she did not have it with 
 Manuel. 
 
 " I could not go away and leave Benito on the 
 bedstead," he said very gently indeed. Then he 
 added, " I do not wish to leave Benito at all." 
 
 Something in old Juana's face, also, made him 
 go to her and put his hand into hers. " Do you 
 wish me to stay here with you ? " he asked. 
 
 Old Juana did not forget to be polite. "If 
 Donna Hulita wishes it," she said in a voice that 
 shook, " it is to be permitted." 
 
 Then the lady looked at Benito. " What do you 
 say, Benito ? " she asked. 
 
 Benito's face flushed. In his mind he had seen 
 the picture of Manuel and himself at work side 
 by side as they had often ridden side by side, in 
 their play, on the burros. He could form no 
 picture of a life indoors behind adobe or brick 
 walls. He did not believe that Manuel could be 
 happy when shut within the walls of a casa. 
 
 So he said in answer to Donna Hulita, " We 
 have made a plan by which we may both be to- 
 gether and stay out of doors. That is good for 
 Manuel, because he must always be out of doors 
 where he can see the mountains." 
 
 He told the plan and she listened with much 
 sympathy, and then said gently, " But it would 
 take you a long time to earn money in that way.
 
 DONNA HULITA'S CALL 53 
 
 Senora Gomez will have pretty clothes all ready 
 for Manuel when he goes into her service. She 
 is going to dress him just as Don Felipe is dressed, 
 with silver buttons on his embroidered leather 
 clothes, and a beautiful red and blue sash. He 
 will look like a little hacendado." 
 
 Benito had nothing more to say. He fixed his 
 eyes upon Manuel's face, while Manuel fixed his 
 upon Donna Hulita. 
 
 " I do not know," said Manuel at last. " I can- 
 not tell now. Perhaps I can tell to-morrow." 
 
 It was almost the first time in his life that the 
 boy had used the common Mexican expression, 
 " hasta manana " (until to-morrow), but there was 
 good reason for his using it now. 
 
 Until to-morrow they could talk together, they 
 three, about the old life and what the new one 
 would be like, were Manuel to go across the moun- 
 tains at last. 
 
 As for Donna Hulita, back in the great casa, she 
 smiled to think that she had not gained her way. 
 " Until to-morrow ! " she repeated. " How these 
 peons do put everything off until to-morrow." 
 Then she remembered that Manuel was not really 
 a peon. His father was a Spaniard, and his name, 
 the name that old Juana gave to him, was that of 
 Don Felipe's own family. 
 
 " It will be better for him to take another name,"
 
 54 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 she said to herself. " If he goes to Senora Go- 
 mez, he shall go as Manuel Juarez." Then she 
 added, after a moment's thought, "If the look in 
 his face means anything, he will go." 
 
 She was not wrong in her thought. Manuel, on 
 the next day, stood once again before her and said 
 he would go to Mexico City and become a page to 
 Senora Gomez. " But," he added, " Benito must 
 go also." 
 
 Donna Hulita smiled. " I thought Benito could 
 not be moved from the bedstead," she said. 
 
 " We will wait one week before we go," said 
 Manuel, " then Benito will be the same as always. 
 The doctor said so." 
 
 " Ah well," said the lady, " it will make no dif- 
 ference to Senora Gomez. It shall be as you say." 
 
 When Benito heard of the decision he looked 
 beyond the open doorway to the mountain-top. 
 Something of Manuel's look was in his face as 
 he said, " It is a good thing that I should be with 
 you, Manuel, else when you get to the mountain- 
 top you may think the stars are only flowers under 
 your feet." 
 
 The tears sprang to Manuel's eyes. " My Ben- 
 ito," he said, " this hacienda, where we have played 
 together, and where the flowers grow, will always 
 be the dearest place in the world to us both."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CASTLES IN THE AIR 
 
 The week dwindled away until only a couple of 
 days were left before the two boys were to start 
 on their journey. There had been many talks be- 
 tween Manuel, Benito, and the band. 
 
 Jose had once been on the train as far as Puebla, 
 and could tell the boys of the sights to be seen from 
 the car windows. They were all much interested 
 in the stories he could tell of his travels. 
 
 " Did all the peon boys who lived near the sta- 
 tions go to meet the trains as we do ? " asked one 
 of the band. 
 
 " Yes," said Jose, " but nowhere were there 
 such good looking Indians as ours, and they stood 
 very still as if they did not know how to play as 
 many good games as we do." 
 
 " No one could have such good times as we do 
 at Don Felipe's hacienda," said Juan. As he spoke 
 it was plainly to be seen that his old sullen scowl 
 was gone, and he looked bright and happy. The 
 boys no longer called him " Black Juan." 
 
 " But if Manuel and Benito go away," said 
 55
 
 56 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 Pedro, " we shall have no more good times." He 
 looked ready to cry at the thought. 
 
 " Perhaps we are ready for something else," said 
 Juan, who it seemed had always thought a little for 
 himself. " It is not well to be playing burro-corrido 
 when one is no longer a child." 
 
 " Yes," said Pedro, " we also may work as the 
 burros do, and earn pesos for Don Felipe." 
 
 "But why not, if it is the custom?" asked the 
 band, anxious to hear Jose tell more of his journey. 
 
 " One could see villages and haciendas from 
 the car windows," said Jose, " and sometimes a 
 river with women washing clothes in the water. 
 At an hacienda station I saw a man carrying lunch- 
 baskets on a long pole over his shoulder, just as 
 Pedro often carries the lunches to our own laborers 
 in the fields. At another place many Indians were 
 gathered for a picnic, and for a moment I heard the 
 sound of the music to which they were dancing." 
 
 The band drew its breath at Jose's words. 
 Often, in the evening, when the day's work was 
 over, some one in their own hacienda played on 
 the guitar or tambourine, and they loved the sound. 
 At times one of their number would appear with 
 a borrowed guitar which each would handle lov- 
 ingly, picking some little melody from the strings. 
 
 Sitting beside Benito's bedstead, as they had done 
 so much in these last days, speaking of things
 
 Washing Clothes in the River. Page 56. 
 
 Carrying Luncheon-Baskets. Page 56.
 
 CASTLES IN THE AIR 57 
 
 which stirred them strangely, a change had come 
 over the boys of which they themselves were hardly 
 conscious. 
 
 Juan had expressed it, but did not realize all 
 that it meant, when he had said, " Perhaps we are 
 ready for something else." And now Manuel sur- 
 prised them all by suddenly saying " It is a bad 
 custom." 
 
 The boys looked at him in amazement, as he 
 continued in an excited voice, " We need not al- 
 ways do as the peons do, work for Don Felipe a 
 whole lifetime." 
 
 " That is true," said Pedro approvingly, " we will 
 play a little now and then." 
 
 Manuel looked at him in despair, but Juan under- 
 stood what was in Manuel's mind, even while 
 Benito was speaking from the bed. 
 
 " It is that we must earn centavos and save 
 them, and in the end we can have a burro and a 
 house of our own," he said. 
 
 " Ah," said Juan, " if Manuel and Benito are 
 going to leave the hacienda and dress like hacen- 
 dados, who knows but they may become real ones ? " 
 
 The band opened their eyes and were speech- 
 less. The two ideas were hard to manage at first. 
 
 It would be very pleasant to own a house, a 
 little thatched hut, and a burro. That thought 
 lodged in their minds and never left them.
 
 58 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 At the same time they believed that the two 
 boys who were going to Mexico City were to be- 
 come hacendados. The two thoughts never dis- 
 puted with one another. 
 
 " Sometime, when I have driven my burro to the 
 market with a load of pottery," said Juan, " Manuel 
 and Benito will ride along on their fine horses and 
 buy it all from me." 
 
 Not one of the boys had ever earned a single 
 centavo, but that made no difference. Before the 
 two days were passed they had built many thatched 
 huts with the pesos they were going to earn, and 
 each saw himself the owner of a long procession 
 of burros. 
 
 But Manuel built no such castles in the air. He 
 hunted up little Pepita and said good-bye to her. 
 
 " I am not making the hard signs in the school 
 now," she told him. " Nothing ever came of them. 
 But one can wear pretty clothes after one has 
 learned to make them." 
 
 As she spoke, she held up a little frame in which 
 she was making drawn-work on a piece of coarse 
 linen. 
 
 Manuel pleased the little girl by taking much 
 interest in the pattern she was making with the 
 threads. 
 
 " The cook in the big casa is showing me how to 
 do it," said Pepita. " This picture in the border is
 
 Pepita in the Doorway. Page 58.
 
 CASTLES IN THE AIR 59 
 
 a butterfly, and the one in the middle is going to 
 be the Mexican eagle." 
 
 " It looks very pretty," said Manuel, " but I could 
 make the signs in the school more easily, myself." 
 
 Pepita stood in the doorway on the morning when 
 Manuel and Benito rode out, with one of the 
 overseers, to go to the station at Santa Ana. 
 Manuel's band was there, too, and one of the boys 
 picked a little tune on the guitar, while the rest 
 stood in a group about him. 
 
 Grandmother Juana had left the corn she was 
 grinding, and stood also in the group, tears rolling 
 down her wrinkled cheeks. 
 
 The boys saw them all plainly, but little Pepita, 
 waving her frame of drawn-work, stood out clearer 
 than the rest. 
 
 For a long time after the carriage had passed out 
 of sight, the boys of the band stood at the gateway. 
 
 Then Jose said with a sigh, " I wonder how it 
 would seem to ride in a carriage behind real 
 horses." 
 
 But Juan looked toward the mountain-top and 
 said, " Over there is the land where silver and 
 gold lie in the streets. Manuel and Benito can 
 lean from their carriage door and pick it up." 
 
 Old Juana asked him to repeat his words, and 
 when at last he made her understand, she seemed 
 very angry. " There is nothing of the sort," she
 
 6O MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 said. " There is misery and dirt in that city where 
 they are going. I would not live there myself 
 for all the silver and gold in the whole world." 
 
 But the boys did not believe her. 
 
 " Where Manuel and Benito are there is always 
 happiness," they said loyally to each other. 
 
 And from that moment it became their golden 
 dream to go some day, all together, across the 
 mountain, to find Manuel and Benito in that won- 
 derful City of Mexico.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A RIDE ON THE TRAIN 
 
 Not one of the soldiers of Montezuma ever felt 
 more excitement in going forth to battle than did 
 Manuel and Benito when they seated themselves 
 in the train to begin their journey. 
 
 " It is a pity that the boys could not come on 
 the burros to the station to see us off," said Benito. 
 Just then the guard called " Vamonos ! " The 
 train started, and the two held their breath for 
 joy. 
 
 Benito forgot the band and clutched Manuel's 
 arm. " This is better than galloping on the old 
 burros," he shouted, thinking that Manuel had sud- 
 denly gone deaf. Manuel was looking with a 
 fascinated gaze to see objects flying past the car 
 windows. 
 
 At the next station they remembered the band, 
 because a group of Indians stood on the platform 
 with canes to sell. The canes had beautiful carved 
 heads which took the fancy of the tourists in the 
 first-class cars. 
 
 Manuel and Benito were travelling in the second- 
 61
 
 62 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 class car. As Manuel saw how many of the canes 
 were sold, he said, " It is a pity the boys could 
 not see them. They could soon learn to carve 
 heads on canes, and they could earn many centavos 
 in the same way." 
 
 " But the boys have no knives," said Benito. 
 " They must first earn the centavos to buy the 
 knives before they can make the canes." 
 
 However they soon forgot the boys again, for 
 there was some wonderful new sight to see every 
 moment. 
 
 " There is a maguey field like our own," cried 
 Benito. 
 
 " Oh, a bridge, a bridge ! " shouted Manuel. 
 
 The bridge over which the train was passing was 
 so high in the air that the boys could hardly see 
 the river below. 
 
 " Jose did not begin to tell us all the wonderful 
 things," said Benito. 
 
 Suddenly Manuel called, " See the beautiful 
 casas ! " 
 
 " They are not all casas," explained the over- 
 seer. " Many of them are churches." 
 
 Manuel saw in the distance the colored domes 
 of the churches of the City of the Angels. They 
 glistened in the sunshine in colors of white, red, 
 brown, yellow, blue and gray, and the sight filled 
 the boys with joy.
 
 A RIDE ON THE TRAIN 63 
 
 " I think the angels may live there now," said 
 little Benito. 
 
 But the overseer was telling them about the 
 battle-field to the north of the city of Puebla. 
 " Eleven times have armies gathered before the 
 gates of this city," he said. 
 
 Manuel thought to himself that it was a great 
 pity that he could not have seen something of the 
 glory of it all, but the overseer went on, " No place 
 in all Mexico is more famous. Here fought our 
 great generals, Iturbide, Zaragoza, and Diaz." 
 
 " Hear him," whispered Benito. " What a 
 mouthful of words he takes. I wish Pedro could 
 try them. It would set him to choking." 
 
 But Manuel was asking about the great hill to 
 the left of the city. 
 
 " That is the pyramid that was built hundreds 
 of years before Cortez saw America," answered 
 the overseer. " From the cathedral on top of the 
 pyramid one can see a mighty distance. On the 
 plain there are many villages, each one with a 
 church tower rising above the low roofs. Fifty- 
 seven churches can be seen from the cathedral." 
 
 Even Benito was quiet for a moment to think 
 what a sight it must be. 
 
 They left Puebla behind them, and Benito began 
 to feel strange. " I do not know what is the mat- 
 ter here," he said, putting his hand over his heart.
 
 64 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 The overseer heard him and said, " I think it is 
 the beginning of homesickness." 
 
 He was sure of it presently when the child put 
 his hand to his eyes and brushed away a tear. 
 
 It was the sight of many burros toiling patiently 
 over the plain and carrying heavy burdens for 
 their Indian masters who trudged along beside 
 them, that reminded him of home. 
 
 But he tried to make the overseer think the tear 
 was for pity of the poor beasts. " They never have 
 any time to play," he said. 
 
 The man understood and smiled. " When we 
 heard that the steam-engine was coming to Mexico," 
 he said, " we thought it would make the burros' load 
 much lighter, but there seems to be no difference." 
 
 Then he thought of something to divert Benito's 
 mind. " The first engine and cars that were car- 
 ried to Mexico City," he said, " had to be dragged 
 in pieces over the mountains by mules." 
 
 Benito began to listen. " How many pieces 
 were there ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, a great many," answered the overseer care- 
 lessly. " The pieces were loaded into wagons, and 
 the roads over the mountain-passes were so hard 
 to climb that sometimes sixty-six mules had to pull 
 together." 
 
 The boys nodded their heads. " That must have 
 been a fine sight," they said.
 
 A RIDE ON THE TRAIN 65 
 
 " Yes," replied the overseer. " Don Felipe's 
 father drove his finest horses to Mexico City to 
 try their speed against that of the steam-engine." 
 
 " Ah, and which won ? " asked Manuel. 
 
 " The steam-engine always won, although the 
 engineer sometimes let Don Luis think he was 
 going to win." 
 
 Benito felt no more homesickness. The train 
 was climbing over the mountains and through great 
 passes. Manuel felt as if he were at last among 
 the stars, and looked in wonder at the valleys they 
 were leaving behind them.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 
 
 It was Benito who looked forward and saw the 
 beautiful lake. " This is the lake where Cortez 
 launched his boats," said the overseer. 
 
 " The boats which the Tlaxcalan Indians in our 
 own state helped him to make ? " asked Manuel. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And I suppose they took the boats also to 
 pieces and brought them up here," said Benito, who 
 did not suppose it at all. 
 
 " Yes, that is just what they did," was the an- 
 swer. " The boats were small, flat-bottomed ones, 
 which could be easily taken apart and put together 
 again, and eight thousand Tlaxcalan Indians car- 
 ried them over the mountains on their backs." 
 
 " I almost wish I had lived then," said Benito ; 
 but he thought of the sights before them, and the 
 many new things to find out about, and shook his 
 head. " It is best as it is," he said, " there are still 
 good times to be had for the making." 
 
 " How do you suppose Cortez felt when he first 
 saw the City of Mexico?" asked Manuel. 
 
 " I never heard what he said," replied the over- 
 seer, " but it must have been something like, 
 66
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 67 
 
 ' What a fine lot of villages to destroy ! ' because 
 he went to work at once to destroy them." 
 
 " How long do you think it took him ? " asked 
 Benito. 
 
 " History says that seventy-five days from the 
 time he went to conquer the Aztecs the valley of 
 Mexico all lay in one smouldering ruin." 
 
 " Pedro was right," said the boy indignantly, 
 " he was a bad man." 
 
 " Well, he found men here before him who were 
 just as bad. One of these men, when he was only 
 a boy, tossed his nurse into the well because she 
 displeased him. His name was Ixtlilxochitl." 
 
 " I think his name was to blame for it," said 
 Manuel with a laugh. " That name is enough to 
 make its owner do something pretty bad." 
 
 The overseer laughed also. "If that is so, those 
 old names seem to have worked lots of mischief," 
 he said. 
 
 " Tell us some more," said Benito. " It makes 
 me shiver to hear it, but I like it." 
 
 " Ah, Benito," said Manuel, " you would never 
 make a brave soldier if you must shiver when you 
 hear such tales." 
 
 Benito gave Manuel a playful blow with his fist. 
 " Just see what I would do if I had to fight for 
 you," he said. 
 
 " You will never have to fight for me," answered
 
 68 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 Manuel, quickly. " I can fight for myself." 
 
 But the overseer was speaking again. " Did you 
 ever hear of Montezuma?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes," said Manuel, " he was that good priest 
 who was sweeping out the temple more than four 
 hundred years ago when they went to tell him that 
 he was to be the ruler of Mexico." 
 
 " That is right. The empire became a very 
 splendid one under his rule. He was a kingly 
 looking man, and when he went to war, dressed in 
 his war- feathers and armor, it must have been a 
 fine sight." 
 
 " I didn't know that they had needles and thread 
 to make clothes, and the right material for armor, 
 four hundred years ago," said Benito, opening his 
 eyes wide in surprise. 
 
 " Oh, yes, they always had the maguey plant in 
 Mexico. The Aztecs got good thread from the 
 fiber, and the thorns at the tip of the leaves make 
 as good pins and needles as you can find any- 
 where." 
 
 " What did Senor Montezuma do when he was 
 not making pins and needles or going to war ? " 
 asked Benito mischievously. 
 
 " He was building fine temples and statues to 
 put into them. But he sometimes looked to see if 
 the gold-fish in his tanks were in good condition, for 
 he had a beautiful garden where they were kept."
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 69 
 
 " I did not know that those old warriors ever 
 stopped to play," said Manuel. 
 
 " Oh, they had royal games ! They held a 
 jubilee at the end of every cycle, which was better 
 than any bull-fight in Mexico to-day," said the over- 
 seer. 
 
 " What is a cycle ? " asked the boy. 
 
 " It is a certain number of years. With the 
 Aztecs it was fifty-two years. At the end of every 
 cycle of fifty-two years they let the fires in all of 
 the temples go out. Then the priests journeyed to 
 a certain mountain where they held a festival, and 
 with flint and tinder they lighted a new fire which 
 was to burn through another cycle." 
 
 " If it happened only once in fifty-two years," 
 said Benito, " Montezuma could not have been to 
 many such festivals." 
 
 " No, he was still young when he was killed by 
 an arrow from the bow of his own nephew, but 
 he reigned in great splendor while he was em- 
 peror." 
 
 " How do you know that, if it happened so 
 many years ago ? " asked the boy. 
 
 " Because of the ruins that are still to be seen, 
 and the stone images that are still dug from the 
 ground where they have lain for four hundred years 
 and more. And there are banners and ornaments in 
 our museums that belonged to the ancient people."
 
 7O MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 " It is very wonderful," said Manuel. " I 
 should like to see some of the things." 
 
 But Benito was tired of hearing so much that 
 was old. " I would rather hear about Don Luis's 
 house where we are going to live in the oldest city 
 in America," he said. " I hope that is not old 
 also." 
 
 " No," said the overseer, " it is one of the finest 
 casas in the city. There are three patios inside 
 the walls, and there is much gold and silver about 
 the walls and stairways. You will have much to 
 learn about the customs of the family." 
 
 Benito looked sober. " I care not how much 
 gold and silver is in the casa, if there are only 
 plenty of bright flowers growing in the patios," 
 he said. 
 
 " There are plenty of both," was the answer. 
 
 " What are we going to do for Senora Gomez, 
 after she has dressed us in fine clothes ? " asked 
 Manuel. 
 
 " You will run every time she claps her hands 
 for you," said the overseer. He was a man who 
 had been in the service of the family all his life, 
 and could tell the boys much about Senora Gomez 
 and Don Luis. 
 
 " I can run," said Benito. " Manuel was the 
 only one of the band who could beat me. Senora 
 Gomez will think she has two cargadors."
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY Jl 
 
 The Mexican cargador is a man of burden, just 
 as the Mexican burro is a beast of burden. He 
 will take a heavy load on his back and run with it 
 for miles. For many centuries he was the only 
 expressman in the country. It was in Benito's 
 mind that Senora Gomez wanted him and Manuel 
 in her casa to be cargadors for her. 
 
 " But I do not see how she can keep us busy 
 all the time," he said to Manuel. " Sometimes we 
 will slip out of the casa and find our way to the 
 plaza. There must be music in the plaza just as 
 there is at the city of Tlaxcala." 
 
 The overseer smiled to hear the two boys talk. 
 He saw that in their minds the City of Mexico was 
 very much like the little city of their native state, 
 which had seen its best days in the time of the great 
 Cortez. 
 
 He would have told them something about the 
 beautiful Alameda where the pride of Mexico can 
 be seen every Sunday; something about the wide 
 streets, the shops, the electric lights, the fountains 
 and monuments, but there was no time. The train 
 was already rolling into the station and they were 
 at last in the country beyond the mountains, in the 
 city of their dreams.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MORNING IN MEXICO CITY 
 
 " Manuel ! Manuelito ! " 
 
 Benito was standing at the head of the stair- 
 case which in Mexican houses leads from the up- 
 per balcony to the patio below. This patio is sur- 
 rounded by the servants' rooms, offices and stables. 
 
 Benito sent his call in a hoarse whisper straight 
 down the marble staircase and across the patio. At 
 the stable door stood Manuel, stroking the nose of 
 a beautiful horse. He turned and looked up at 
 Benito. 
 
 It was a wonder that Manuel knew the boy in 
 such splendid clothes, or that Benito knew Manuel, 
 for that matter. 
 
 An embroidered leather suit of vest, jacket and 
 trousers, had changed the ragged little boy into a 
 distinguished looking senor. 
 
 Benito's hair was curly and his eyes were always 
 sparkling with laughter, else one must have stood 
 quite in awe of such a fine looking person. 
 
 Manuel was dressed exactly as Benito was. The 
 only difference between them was in their hair and 
 72
 
 Copyright by Underwood & Lmucrwuotl, New Yo 
 
 Patio in the House of Senora Gomez. Page 72.
 
 MORNING IN MEXICO CITY 73 
 
 eyes. Manuel's hair was straight, and his eyes 
 looked at one in a proud serious way. 
 
 When Senora Gomez looked into Manuel's eyes, 
 she behaved just as Donna Hulita had done. She 
 said nothing for several moments. Then she 
 nodded her head, but her words had nothing to 
 do with the nodding. 
 
 " What did you think of the horses? " she asked. 
 
 It had pleased Senora Gomez to send a carriage 
 to the station to meet the two little boys. 
 
 " You must not begin by spoiling them," Don 
 Luis advised her ; but she answered, " I have lived 
 sixty years, and have never seen anyone spoiled 
 by a little kindness." 
 
 Then she added, " It would be sad to have their 
 bodies here, and their hearts back in the hacienda." 
 
 " Well, well ! " answered the Don, " have your 
 own way. It will be nothing new." 
 
 So the boys rode behind a pair of the very finest 
 Mexican horses on their way from the station to 
 the casa. 
 
 Perhaps Senora Gomez wished to learn whether 
 the boys would notice the city sights and pay no 
 attention to the horses; or whether they were like 
 so many other Indian boys, and would not notice 
 anything at all. 
 
 She soon found that Manuel and Benito were 
 two unusual boys. They had not only watched the
 
 74 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 horses, but they had asked the overseer so many 
 questions about the city sights that he was quite 
 tired with answering them. 
 
 It was Benito who answered Senora Gomez' ques- 
 tion. " If the horses that raced against the steam- 
 engine were like those, it must have been a fine 
 engine," he said. 
 
 Senora Gomez laughed and looked at Benito for 
 the first time. " Which is Manuel ? " she asked. 
 
 " I am Manuel." The boy said it with the quiet 
 dignity that was a part of him. 
 
 " I was sure of it," said the Senora, nodding 
 her head again. Then she put her hand upon the 
 boy's head in a kindly way. " Donna Hulita wrote 
 me that you would not come without Benito," she 
 said, and added, " I am very glad of it." 
 
 She turned the boys over to the care of the 
 housekeeper, who put them to bed as soon as she 
 could. 
 
 " They are good enough muchachos," she said 
 to her friend Teresa, the chamber-maid. " The 
 curly-headed one talks most, but I can see that he 
 listens when the other has anything to say." 
 
 In the early morning the boys were up and 
 would have gone into the patio at once to look 
 at the gardens, but Teresa stopped them. " You 
 are to be dressed in your new clothes," she told 
 them, and called the housekeeper.
 
 MORNING IN MEXICO CITY 75 
 
 It was many days before the housekeeper 
 ceased talking about that dressing-party. 
 
 " Here stood Benito," she said, " saying, ' But 
 first I must try on Manuel's trousers to see how 
 much too large they are for me.' He got into 
 one leg just in time to hear the charcoal-man in 
 the street crying, ' Charcoal, sir ! Charcoal, sir ! ' 
 at which the boy ran to the window as fast as one 
 bare leg and one covered one could carry him. 
 
 " Manuel ran after him, waving his jacket in the 
 air, and together they watched the charcoal-man 
 until he turned the corner. After that they came 
 back to the dressing. 
 
 " But Benito had forgotten that the trousers were 
 going on, and took them off to look at the beautiful 
 stitches up and down the legs. Then he must needs 
 look to see if the same stitches were on his own 
 pair. 
 
 " He was greatly pleased to find both pairs alike, 
 and started to get into his own. 
 
 " But the tallow-woman must happen along at 
 that very moment, calling, as always, ' Is there 
 tallow ? ' Here was something new, and the boys 
 must again run to look. ' Hey sebooooooo ! ' called 
 Benito after her, and you could not tell which was 
 the tallow-woman and which Benito. But I trem- 
 bled for fear of what he might call next. 
 
 " Even so, the trousers were at last safely on
 
 76 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 four legs, and it was time for the vest. But it 
 seems that the time was also arrived for the corn- 
 cake seller. * Corn-cakes, hot from the oven, my 
 love ! ' he cried, and naughty Benito hearing him, 
 answered, " Here I am coming, my love ! ' and was 
 off again for the window, with Manuel of course 
 behind him. 
 
 " I, myself, was quite dead," said the woman 
 plaintively, " yet what could a body do but laugh. 
 
 " And when they had at last finished looking 
 over the jackets and each trying on the other's, 
 there was old Indian Pedro in the street calling, 
 ' Hot boiled corn ! ' to divert them once more. Ah, 
 it was a long dressing ! " 
 
 Long as it was, the boys ate their own breakfast 
 and explored the patios, but still Senora Gomez 
 had not left her chamber. 
 
 Then it was that Manuel went to look at the 
 horses, while Benito climbed the marble staircase 
 to look at the flowers in the gallery above the 
 court-yard. 
 
 He found his way into the rooms opening into 
 the gallery, and was lost in wonder 'at the sight of 
 so many things he had never imagined. 
 
 " Manuel must see them, too," he said to him- 
 self, so he stole softly to the head of the staircase, 
 and whispered, so as not to wake Senora Gomez, if 
 she were sleeping near by.
 
 MORNING IN MEXICO CITY 77 
 
 " Manuel, Manuelito ! " he whispered, and 
 Manuel ran up the staircase to join him. 
 
 " They have many more things here than they 
 know what to do with," whispered Benito, as the 
 two boys looked from costly rugs lying on the 
 floor to more costly ones hanging on the walls. 
 " You must tell Grandmother Juana to hang your 
 sleeping mat beside the beautiful tomato labels on 
 her wall," he added ; " then she will have a casa 
 like this one of Senora Gomez." 
 
 Manuel smiled as his thoughts went to the tiny 
 room where old Juana lived. He looked about 
 this one, so very different; with priceless orna- 
 ments on rare tables, with wonderful pictures 
 hanging between the rugs on the walls, and said 
 gently, " Grandmother Juana would not be ashamed 
 to ask Senora Gomez to sit in her chair." 
 
 But Benito did not hear. He was looking at 
 the picture of a long line of burros, with packs on 
 their backs, climbing a steep path. 
 
 Benito stood very still and forgot everything 
 but the patient little animals which were so familiar 
 to him. Suddenly he spoke aloud, half angrily, 
 " Why must they always be so sad ? Even here 
 where they have only beautiful things about them, 
 they are still sad and patient." 
 
 " They are like our poor peons back on the 
 hacienda," said Manuel.
 
 78 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 The boys stood hand in hand, looking up at the 
 picture, and making, in their pretty costumes, a 
 part of the larger picture about them. 
 
 Sefiora Gomez, standing in the doorway, looked 
 at them in delight. She clapped her hands softly 
 together, and the boys turned at the sound. 
 
 " We have much to do to-day," the Sefiora said 
 cheerfully, " I shall hold my Christmas posada to- 
 morrow, and we must go to the market for the 
 things with which to build our Nacimiento." 
 
 The two boys caught their breath and clutched 
 hands more tightly. They had been afraid that, 
 in coming away from the hacienda at this Christ- 
 mas time, they would miss the joy of seeing a 
 Nacimiento and sharing a posada. 
 
 Christmas is the happiest time in the whole year 
 for a Mexican child. 
 
 No family is too poor to hold some kind of 
 festivity, which is usually called a posada. At this 
 festivity there is much merriment, with feasting, 
 and dancing, and exchanging of gifts. 
 
 The two boys, who had come to act as pages for 
 a rich lady in her grand casa, forgot their duties 
 and suddenly rolled together upon the floor in 
 their great joy.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 
 
 " I have never heard that it is the custom for 
 pages to roll upon the floor," said Sefiora Gomez 
 with a twinkle in her eye. 
 
 Benito was on his feet in an instant. " Shame, 
 Manuel," he whispered, " the naguales will be after 
 you." 
 
 But Manuel was already upon his feet and both 
 boys were making their finest salute to the Senora. 
 
 " Your pardon," they murmured, as old Juana 
 had told them to do should things go wrong. 
 
 However, Senora Gomez smiled kindly and bade 
 them go find their sombreros, after which they were 
 to escort her to her carriage. 
 
 That taking of the lady to her carriage was a 
 sight worth seeing. 
 
 Don Luis stood on the gallery above and watched 
 the group as it passed down the marble staircase. 
 Manuel went first, leading Senora Gomez by the 
 hand as if she were a queen and he were her 
 courtier. Benito walked behind, carrying the lady's 
 79
 
 8O MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 purse. At the carriage door Manuel handed her 
 up the step, then stood aside with folded arms as 
 she told him to do, while Benito closed the door. 
 
 Don Luis saluted from the gallery. " They will 
 do very well," he called. 
 
 The boys sprang to their seat at the back of the 
 carriage, the coachman drove through the great 
 double doors to the street, and the drive began. 
 
 Many people turned to smile at the two tiny 
 pages sitting so solemnly in their seat, as they had 
 been told to do. Their arms were folded across 
 their chests, their eyes fixed straight in front of 
 them. 
 
 " The cunning things ! " exclaimed an American 
 on the sidewalk to her friend. And the friend re- 
 plied, " They won't be able to keep their eyes off 
 the stalls in the plazas long." 
 
 She was right. At the first street corner an 
 Indian passed them, carrying over his shoulder a 
 long pole from which hung paper dolls as large 
 as the boys, which jumped and twisted with the 
 motions of the pole. 
 
 Manuel saw the sight out of a corner of his eye, 
 but he took no notice of it. Benito saw it also, and 
 his head was quickly turned to see it more plainly. 
 He turned back again immediately, and looked 
 straight ahead as before, but he was quivering with 
 excitement.
 
 CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 8l 
 
 " Oh, Manuel," he whispered softly, " they are 
 pinatas! There is a clown, a dancing girl, a ship 
 with all sails set, and a queer old cat." 
 
 It is only in Mexico that one can see a pinata. 
 It takes the place of a Christmas tree in the lives 
 of little Mexican children. Some of the pinatas 
 cost only a few pennies, some of them cost many 
 dollars. 
 
 Benito had never seen such fine ones as those that 
 hung from the Indian's long pole. They were 
 made, as are all the pinatas, in the shape of a per- 
 son, an animal, or some object which will hold a 
 bowl of sweets, rattles, whistles and crackers, or 
 anything which is usually hung upon a Christmas 
 tree. 
 
 The pinata is covered with bright colored stream- 
 ers of tissue paper and tinsel decorations. At the 
 Christmas fiesta it is broken open, and the rattles 
 and sweets fall in a shower and make much fun. 
 
 Hardly had one Indian passed the boys than 
 there were others. Dozens of men and women 
 were selling the pinatas on the streets that day, as 
 they always do just before Christmas. 
 
 Benito sighed. " Ah, Manuel," he said under 
 his breath, " I don't believe I can bear it." 
 
 " What is it you would do, Benito ? " asked 
 Manuel softly. 
 
 " I would jump down from this horrible shelf
 
 82 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 and run here and there where my feet would take 
 me." 
 
 Manuel nodded, " I, too, suffer, poor Benito," 
 he answered, " but have patience, it cannot last 
 much longer." 
 
 Manuel was right. They soon stopped in the 
 great plaza. The boys sprang down from their 
 hateful shelf, Senora Gomez was landed safely on 
 the ground, and the boys forgot their sufferings in 
 looking at the Christmas gifts. 
 
 In and out among the stalls slipped Benito, for- 
 getting and then remembering Manuel, as he spied 
 the many things they both loved. He crooned a 
 little song to himself all the while; it rose with 
 his pleasure, or died away at the sight of something 
 grotesque. 
 
 He stood long before the stand where wax bells 
 and flowers were sold. There were many hand- 
 fuls of the little white bells, which shook with every 
 breath, and over which Benito's song rose so 
 loudly that the Indian woman behind the stand 
 smiled at him and offered him one of them. 
 
 He took it with his prettiest thanks, and turned 
 to the stall next to hers, where there were many 
 scenes in wax. A newsboy in wax, so tiny that 
 it stopped Benito's song, caught his eye. " I could 
 make something as good as that," he said aloud. 
 
 The Indian who sat beside the stall looked at
 
 CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 83 
 
 him sharply. " Here is a piece of wax," he told 
 the boy, " show me what you can do." 
 
 Benito took the wax and began to shape it into 
 a head. He fixed his eyes upon the face of the 
 Indian woman who had given him the bell. After 
 his fingers had worked the wax into the shape of 
 a head, the features began to appear. Finally he 
 placed a woman's head before the man. There 
 was a smile on the mouth, the same sweet 
 smile with which the Indian woman gave the bell 
 to him. 
 
 " It is Teresa ! " exclaimed the man in surprise, 
 but Benito was presenting it to the woman herself. 
 " May you always have joy," he said simply. 
 
 Senora Gomez arrived just at that moment. 
 " We have been looking for you everywhere," she 
 said. But the Indian man called to the woman 
 with the bells. " Show the Senora," he com- 
 manded. 
 
 She held the head, with its beautiful smile, to- 
 ward Senora Gomez. The Senora studied it care- 
 fully. Then she said, " You are a genius, my 
 little Benito." 
 
 The boy looked up into her face. " I do not 
 know what that is," he said. 
 
 The lady did not explain. She led the boys to 
 a stand where there were all sorts of things, from 
 Chinese lanterns to woolly monkeys. There were
 
 84 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 peanuts, wooden toys, hideous masks, jumping- 
 jacks and wooden whistles. There was also a 
 nagual. 
 
 A nagual is a queer, horrible thing that is some- 
 times used to frighten children and make them 
 good. This toy nagual had a woolly body on four 
 little legs that were much too small for him. The 
 face was a man's face, but so ugly that Benito 
 shut his eyes and turned his head away. 
 
 Some Mexicans think there are real naguales the 
 size of men, and that they have magic power and 
 can become invisible. Benito did not really believe 
 in them, because Manuel did not; but at the sight 
 of this one he pulled Manuel away to the candy 
 stands. 
 
 Senora Gomez followed. It pleased her to let 
 the boys do as they liked for a little while. 
 
 Among the candies were some figures of the 
 men who fight with the bulls at a bull-fight. None 
 of them were more than an inch or two tall, but 
 they were perfect in shape. The boys named them 
 all, even to the grand person who rides up to the 
 president of the arena and asks if the fight may 
 begin. 
 
 Benito looked at the tiny candy horse with its 
 red saddle cloth embroidered in gold, the tiny 
 scarlet reins, the rider with his plumed hat, and 
 laughed. " I wonder that you do not wish to
 
 CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 85 
 
 become an alguacil like him," he said, " that you 
 may wear his fine clothes." 
 
 Senora Gomez saw Manuel put his arm affection- 
 ately over Benito's shoulder and heard him say, 
 " I would much rather be the matador there. He 
 has even finer clothes. But it is not for the sake 
 of the fine clothes, it is for the sake of killing the 
 bull at once, with one stroke of the knife ; then there 
 is no more suffering." 
 
 The Senora nodded her head again. " That was 
 spoken as Gabriel would have spoken it," she said 
 to herself. Gabriel was her son. He had gone 
 from her many years before and she had never 
 seen him since. But there were often times when 
 she longed for him, because he had been dearer to 
 her than anyone else in the world. 
 
 He had gone away because he wished to be a 
 matador. The life of the bull ring, with its ex- 
 citement and danger and its chance for bravery 
 before thousands of admiring people, had called 
 him so strongly that he obeyed the call. 
 
 Senora Gomez and Don Luis begged him to enter 
 the military school instead; they promised him 
 plenty of danger in the army. Finally they forbade 
 him ever to mention the bull ring to them again. 
 So he went away and they knew nothing more about 
 him. 
 
 Soon after he went, they heard of a remarkably
 
 86 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 brave matador who had suddenly appeared in a city 
 to the south. For a little while his fame grew, then 
 it was reported that he had gone over the ocean to 
 Spain and would never return to Mexico. That 
 was ten years before, and Senora Gomez had never 
 been her old self since. 
 
 It was not strange that a high-spirited boy 
 should wish to become a matador. He is always 
 the hero of a bull-fight. He is the man who kills 
 the bull after all the other actors have finished play- 
 ing with him. 
 
 The matador is dressed in the most beautiful 
 clothes. This candy one at which the boys were 
 looking wore a pink jacket with white knee- 
 breeches. A very much embroidered shirt was un- 
 der the jacket, and there was a gorgeous scarlet 
 sash around his waist. He wore white stockings 
 and black slippers. 
 
 As Senora Gomez looked at Manuel she could 
 not help thinking that he would look very hand- 
 some in the suit of a matador. Suddenly she said 
 to herself, " He shall be dressed in such a suit at 
 my posada to-morrow." 
 
 She hurried the boys a little after that, because 
 there were many gifts to choose and the new suit 
 to be bought. 
 
 Oh, the gifts ! Benito was in quite a stupor be- 
 fore they were half selected. There were so many
 
 CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 87 
 
 toys, so many pinatas, so many boxes of delicious 
 candy! There was so much hurrying back and 
 forth between hundreds of stands which gleamed 
 and sparkled like fairyland! 
 
 It was Manuel who kept his head; Manuel who 
 closed Benito's fingers over baskets filled with 
 packages, saying, " Hold them fast, you crazy 
 Benito, else they will drop from your hand and 
 you will never know it." 
 
 At last they had everything bought, including 
 the matador's suit for Manuel and an alguacil's 
 suit for Benito. 
 
 Then they were driven home to prepare the 
 Nacimiento. 
 
 The Nacimiento is the Christmas altar and 
 manger which may be seen in every house in 
 Mexico, from the very poorest to the very richest. 
 
 Under Senora Gomez' directions great packing- 
 boxes were placed one above another, like stairs, 
 nearly to the ceiling in one of the finest rooms in 
 the casa. Blue and white draperies were then 
 thrown over the boxes, completely covering them. 
 Mingled with the draperies were quantities of 
 feathery gray moss. 
 
 On one of the stairs, wider than the others, a 
 mirror was placed to represent a lake. China 
 ducks and geese, and little boats, were scattered 
 upon the water.
 
 88 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 On the stair above the lake stood the manger- 
 cradle in a little house. An exquisitely carved 
 image lay in the cradle, and scattered about the 
 house, inside and out, were groups of figures to 
 represent Joseph and Mary and the others. 
 
 There were the three Kings who travelled from 
 afar to see the new baby; there were sheep and a 
 shepherd ; there were men driving burros, and men 
 on horseback. On the road leading up from the 
 lake was a yoke of oxen dragging the heavy ox- 
 cart of Mexico. 
 
 Above everything else, on the top stair, the 
 altar was placed, surrounded with candles and 
 flowers and tinsel. The candles were of every 
 color in the rainbow and there were dozens of 
 them. Over everything hung wreaths of the little 
 white wax bells which shook constantly. 
 
 It was truly charming, and poor Benito stood 
 before it when it was finished, clasping and un- 
 clasping his hands and saying, " If only Pedro, and 
 Jose, and the others could see it ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 GABRIEL'S HOME-COMING 
 
 Benito walked in a dream for the next two days. 
 He knew that wonderful things happened and that 
 he was a part of them all, but not until many days 
 had passed did they get straightened out in his 
 mind. 
 
 He knew well that on Christmas Eve he opened 
 the posada. In his alguacil's dress he rode a 
 prancing pony across the patio and halted below the 
 gallery. Don Luis, Senora Gomez, and all their 
 relatives looked down upon him, and he asked per- 
 mission for the festivities to begin. It was the 
 way it happens in the arena, at a bull-fight. And 
 just as the president of the arena throws down the 
 keys to the alguacil, so Senora Gomez threw down 
 the keys to Benito. He caught them in his hat and 
 carried them to the porter who opened the great 
 doors wide and the guests began to arrive. 
 
 From that moment both the boys were busy wait- 
 ing upon lovely ladies and courtly men. Every one 
 was dressed in his very best to do honor to the 
 hostess, for this was the first time since Gabriel 
 89
 
 90 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 went away that a ball had been given in the home of 
 Seiior Gomez. 
 
 After the dancing, Senora Gomez walked among 
 her guests, with Manuel on her right and Benito on 
 her left, each carrying a tray of gifts. To each 
 guest she gave a gift and a pretty wish for happi- 
 ness. 
 
 When there was nothing left to be given away, 
 and the last good wish had been spoken, Manuel 
 looked up into her face. " May the best gift and 
 the greatest happiness of all come to you, Senora," 
 he said. 
 
 She looked at him with tears in her eyes. " Ah, 
 little one," she answered, " there is but one gift 
 that can bring happiness to me." Then she turned 
 to go away, but Manuel said gently, " What may 
 that be, Senora?" 
 
 " To see my boy, Gabriel," she answered, and 
 went to find Don Luis. 
 
 The two boys looked at one another. They had 
 never heard of Gabriel, but Benito said that was 
 no reason why they should not. " Let us ask the 
 housekeeper if she knows him," he said. 
 
 To the housekeeper they went, and found her 
 busy sending maids here and there with delicious 
 things to eat and drink. 
 
 To her, in the midst of all her cares, Benito said, 
 " And pray, who is Gabriel ? "
 
 GABRIEL'S HOME-COMING 91 
 
 The housekeeper was so astonished at the ques- 
 tion that she looked at the boys with open eyes and 
 mouth. Then, " Come with your questions when 
 it is summer and no guests here to be kept from 
 starving," she answered briefly, and went on with 
 her work. 
 
 But the maid, who was just about to carry a tray 
 to the dining-room, suddenly spoke with a fright- 
 ened face. " I saw a strange man in the shrubbery 
 of the patio an hour ago. He had the figure of 
 Sefior Gabriel," she said. 
 
 "What was he doing?" asked the housekeeper 
 sharply. 
 
 " He was watching the people in the gallery," an- 
 swered the maid. 
 
 " We must speak of it to Don Luis at once," said 
 the housekeeper. 
 
 The boys went away, stealing a moment from 
 Senora Gomez to look through the patio shrubbery 
 for a strange man. 
 
 " As if every man here, who entered through the 
 big door, was not a strange man to us," said Benito 
 grumblingly, as they started. 
 
 They were fortunate, however, for at the foot 
 of the great staircase, in the shadow of a column, 
 hung the housekeeper's parrot. So many lights 
 and people kept it from sleeping. As the boys 
 stopped near its cage, uncertain which way to turn
 
 92 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 first, the parrot suddenly croaked, " Adios 1 Adios ! 
 Look at the strange senor ! " 
 
 Benito was the only one who was startled. A 
 man's figure moved quickly from behind the next 
 column, and Manuel saw him. Before he could 
 speak the man was boldly crossing the patio under 
 the glare of the lights. As the boys saw his face 
 they looked at each other and Manuel said, " He 
 looks like Don Luis ;" while Benito said, " It must 
 be Senor Gabriel himself," and both boys added, 
 " The Senora's son ! " 
 
 Just as they started to follow him, to tell him 
 what Senora Gomez had said, there was a call from 
 the staircase, " Manuel, where is Manuel ? " 
 
 " It is to break the pinata," said the boy. 
 " Senora Gomez told me to be ready after the pass- 
 ing of the gifts." 
 
 " Go then," said Benito, " and I will follow the 
 stranger and tell him that the Senora has spoken of 
 him." 
 
 It was well that Benito was not to break the 
 pinata. Excited as he was, he could never hit it 
 even with his eyes open, and Manuel was to be 
 blindfolded. 
 
 Two pinatas were hanging among the trees, a 
 full-rigged ship, and a clown. The guests flocked 
 down the staircase, and while Benito disappeared 
 into the farther patio after the stranger, Senora
 
 GABRIEL S HOME-COMING 93 
 
 Gomez blindfolded Manuel ; then she led him to the 
 spot from which he was to strike at the clown. 
 
 It was a pretty sight. The boy stood in the midst 
 of so much light and color, while the arcades of the 
 casa, also a blaze of light, rose behind as a back- 
 ground. 
 
 There was much laughing from the guests as 
 Manuel struck once at the clown and failed to hit 
 him. 
 
 " That is being but a poor matador," said Senora 
 Gomez. " Try again." 
 
 At the second stroke the clown broke and the air 
 was filled with jumping frogs, whistles, wonderful 
 puzzles, sweets, and many other things. 
 
 "Now Benito! Benito must break the ship," 
 called the Senora. 
 
 " I will find him," said Manuel, and snatching the 
 handkerchief from his eyes, he dashed into the next 
 patio. He found Benito and the stranger under a 
 distant tree. The man's hand was on the boy's 
 shoulder holding him still, while he watched the 
 group of beautiful women and handsome men with 
 a sad look in his eyes. 
 
 " What did Senora Gomez say to you when you 
 missed the pifiata ? " he asked Manuel before the 
 boy could speak. 
 
 " She said I was but a poor matador,'* said the 
 boy simply.
 
 94 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 The man took the handkerchief which Manuel 
 still held, and stepped forward toward the com- 
 pany. The laughter grew quiet. Everybody fas- 
 tened eyes upon Senora Gomez who stood still and 
 waited for the stranger to reach her. At her feet 
 he knelt in a princely way and held out the hand- 
 kerchief. "Will you let this matador try?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Senora Gomez began to sob. " Oh, Gabriel," she 
 said, taking both his hands, " Why did you go 
 away ? " 
 
 Then from a great stillness there rose a great 
 noise. Everybody was suddenly talking to every- 
 body else, and no one seemed to know what be- 
 came of Don Luis, Senora Gomez and Gabriel, 
 who had quietly disappeared. 
 
 The guests also began to disappear. The boys 
 found themselves holding open carriage doors. 
 Everybody was slipping away from the posada, that 
 the happy family might be left alone in its joy to 
 celebrate the Nacimiento. 
 
 As the last carriage rolled through the great en- 
 trance, Benito held up his finger to Manuel. 
 " Hark ! " he said. Manuel heard in the distance 
 the stirring sound of music. 
 
 " Why do we stay when everybody else is go- 
 ing?" Benito asked, and without waiting for an 
 answer, slipped out upon the sidewalk. Manuel
 
 GABRIEL'S HOME-COMING 95 
 
 followed, not knowing just what he was going to 
 do. The great doors closed behind them, for the 
 porter had not seen them go out. Manuel might 
 easily have knocked for the doors to be opened im- 
 mediately, but he saw Benito, already yards away, 
 hurrying toward the plaza from which came the 
 sound of music. 
 
 Manuel looked forward toward Benito, then back- 
 ward to the closed door. A smile flashed over his 
 face. "If we are shut out into the city, we might 
 just as well go and look at it," he said, very much 
 as Benito might have spoken, and ran forward after 
 his playmate. 
 
 No one missed them. The servants were so busy 
 telling each other how it happened that they did 
 not see Senor Gabriel in the patio shrubbery that a 
 long time passed before any of them thought of the 
 boys. Don Luis and Senora Gomez, of course, 
 thought of no one but Gabriel. 
 
 They had been right in thinking he was the fa- 
 mous matador who left Mexico for Spain ten years 
 before. It had taken him all those ten years to find 
 out that he loved his home and his own country 
 better than he loved the life of a matador. 
 
 " I will go into the army now, if you wish," he 
 said to his father. " I have had enough of bull- 
 fighting." 
 
 " No," Don Luis answered, " I need some one to
 
 96 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 take the care off my shoulders. ,You have come 
 home just at the right time." 
 
 Then Gabriel spoke of something else. There 
 was a little child whom he wanted to see. After he 
 left his home, he said, he went first up into the 
 mountains; there, among the Indians, he found a 
 beautiful girl, whom he married. A year later she 
 died, but she left a baby son whose eyes were the 
 eyes of a Gomez. 
 
 Gabriel had placed this child with an old Indian 
 woman, meaning to have him brought up as a peon ; 
 but as the years passed he longed to see the boy. 
 Through that longing to see his own son he grew to 
 realize how deeply Senora Gomez must sorrow for 
 her son, until at last he could stay away no longer. 
 
 He had entered the patio unnoticed in the dusk of 
 the evening, behind two servants, and had watched 
 for a fitting time to make himself known to his 
 father and mother. That time came when Manuel 
 went to find Benito to break the pinata. 
 
 " My own boy must be about the age of your 
 Manuel," he told the Senora, and asked, " Where 
 did you find him, Mother ? " 
 
 " Hulita sent him to me from the hacienda," she 
 answered. 
 
 "Why, Mother!" shouted Gabriel, "I left my 
 baby with an Indian woman at Felipe's hacienda ! " 
 
 Then there was great excitement again.
 
 GABRIEL'S HOME-COMING 97 
 
 " We must question Manuel," said Senora Gomez, 
 " and find out about his father and mother." 
 
 She clapped her hands together and a maid hur- 
 ried into the room, only too glad to steal a look at 
 Senor Gabriel. 
 
 " Go at once and find Manuel and bring him 
 here," said Senora Gomez, and as the maid went out 
 of the room Don Luis said, "Of course the boy has 
 a father and mother at the hacienda. He will say he 
 has whether he has or not, at this time of night." 
 
 They had been talking a long time and it was very 
 late. Don Luis thought Manuel would be so tired 
 and sleepy that he would know nothing at all. 
 
 But the maid returned, very much excited, and 
 said, " We can not find Manuel anywhere, nor can 
 we find Benito." 
 
 At this the casa was in an uproar. The boys 
 were certainly nowhere inside the walls, and as no 
 one had seen them go out the servants all declared 
 that the naguales had spirited them away. 
 
 But Don Luis spoke sharply. " Out with the 
 horses," he said. " We must search the city."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE BOYS HAVE AN ADVENTURE 
 
 " It is of no use to stay always in the casa," said 
 Benito, when Manuel overtook him. "If we do 
 we shall know nothing of what is going on outside." 
 
 There were things outside which were better left 
 unlearned, had Benito but known it. There were 
 the people who have no homes and live wicked lives. 
 They live in dark corners and steal whenever they 
 can find a chance. They are the outcasts, and were 
 known in olden days as leperos. There are hun- 
 dreds of these people in Mexico City. 
 
 One of them had been hiding in the shadow of 
 Don Luis's casa door until the guests began to go 
 away. The Mexican doorways are so wide and 
 deep that a person can easily hide in the shadow of 
 one. It has always been the custom to keep the 
 doors locked and the windows barred, lest the 
 lepero, who so often leans against them, should try 
 to get inside and steal. 
 
 It is such a common sight to see a person lean- 
 ing against a window or post that a good Mexican 
 mother warns her boy not to lean against a post for 
 98
 
 Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. New York 
 
 Market-Place in Mexico City. Page 99.
 
 THE BOYS HAVE AN ADVENTURE 99 
 
 fear it will make him untruthful. " The post is 
 untruthful," she tells him. 
 
 It was only after Porfirio Diaz became President 
 of Mexico that robbers and bandits disappeared 
 from the republic. He turned them all into the fine 
 mounted police that ride over the country roads to- 
 day. In their gray suits and red scrapes they make 
 a fine appearance, and they behave as well as they 
 look. 
 
 There is no more robbing done along the coun- 
 try roads, but it is quite different in the city. The 
 city policemen are always ready to do their best; 
 they keep a good lookout through the day, and at 
 night keep their lighted lanterns in the middle of 
 the street. Then everybody knows just where they 
 are. But in spite of this the thieves manage to 
 keep pretty busy. 
 
 The poor creature who moved away from the 
 door when Don Luis's guests began to leave saw 
 the handsome costumes on the two boys, and saw 
 also that they were but little fellows, so he fol- 
 lowed them. 
 
 Benito and Manuel never once thought there was 
 anything about them to tempt a thief. They 
 stopped in the plaza long enough to see the fire- 
 works going up all over the city. They listened to 
 the band and watched groups of dancers. They 
 looked at the beautiful gifts for sale everywhere.
 
 IOO MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 They mingled with the crowds, but the thief 
 hovered always somewhere near. It was not hard 
 to keep the two picturesque boys in sight. 
 
 At last he found his chance. The Alameda, the 
 great park of Mexico City, was ablaze with electric 
 lights, and the boys wandered into one of the walks 
 to look at the fountains. The thief followed, and 
 was behind them when they sank at last, tired out, 
 upon a seat beneath the trees. 
 
 " I wonder if there is any place in all the world 
 so fine as this," said Benito happily. But at that 
 moment the man's hand fell upon his shoulder, and 
 the boy started to his feet. 
 
 The encounter did not last very long. Benito 
 and Manuel were strong boys from a mountain val- 
 ley who had learned to move quickly in their games 
 and burro-riding. 
 
 The man had Benito, and almost had Manuel, in 
 his grasp, but Manuel's head was always a cool one. 
 He sprang to one side, saw in a flash what was hap- 
 pening, and jumped upon the thief. It was a good 
 jump. He landed just where he meant to do, upon 
 the thief's back, with his arms about the dirty 
 neck, and held him in a hug that was meant to last. 
 At the same time he opened his mouth and there 
 went forth from it a roar that would have done 
 credit to a yearling bull. 
 
 A policeman in the next path hunted for his Ian-
 
 THE BOYS HAVE AN ADVENTURE IOI 
 
 tern and rushed to the spot, but some one was there 
 before him. 
 
 A man, on his way to find a comfortable place for 
 the night, reached the struggling group just as it 
 was rolling on the ground with Benito underneath. 
 
 When the policeman held up his lantern he saw 
 the thief lying still in a heap, and the two boys rub- 
 bing their heads. 
 
 " I could not choose which to hit first," said the 
 man; then catching sight of Benito's face, he ex- 
 claimed, " Why, 'tis my friend of the wax head ! " 
 
 " 'Tis true that my head feels like a wax one," 
 complained Benito. 
 
 Then into the group there burst others, and still 
 others, as is the way the world over, when there is 
 a disturbance. Among them was Sefior Gabriel, 
 who took charge of the boys and carried them 
 home, after explaining to the policeman that they 
 were not enemies of the republic. 
 
 " I do not believe," said Senora Gomez, her face 
 pale with so much excitement, " that it will be best 
 to ask about Manuel's father and mother to-night. 
 Perhaps it would be better to wait until to-morrow 
 to find out anything more we ought to know." 
 
 But the two boys were sound asleep, and doubt- 
 less had she asked him, Manuel would have said he 
 had several fathers and mothers back on the haci- 
 enda, for he was too tired to think.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 MANUEL'S FATHER 
 
 "Would you care to go back to the hacienda 
 again, and live with Grandmother Juana ? " 
 
 Senor Gabriel asked the question after listening 
 to Manuel's story of his hacienda life with the old 
 Indian woman. 
 
 " Oh, no," answered the boy, " I would rather 
 blacken the shoes of Senora Gomez all day." 
 
 " With a chance to run away at night ? " asked 
 Senor Gabriel slyly. 
 
 Manuel flushed. He realized how much trouble 
 the adventure had caused them all, although he had 
 been asleep most of the time since it had happened, 
 fifteen hours before. 
 
 Gabriel smiled at the boy's red cheeks. " Ah, 
 well," he said, " there is no need for you to do either. 
 I am looking for a baby boy whom I left with old 
 Juana ten years ago. He is my son, and I am his 
 father." 
 
 Both the boys looked astonished and did not seem 
 to understand. " This is the biggest surprise of 
 all," said Benito. " Will you let him go to the 
 military school ? " 
 
 102
 
 MANUEL'S FATHER 103 
 
 " What about the military school ? " asked Senor 
 Gabriel. 
 
 " That is where Manuel wants to go," said the 
 boy. And then it all came out. They told him 
 about Manuel's dreams, about Pedro and Jose and 
 the rest of the band, and about their ambition to 
 become something better than peons. 
 
 Senor Gabriel listened and turned his face away. 
 There was silence in the room for a long time after 
 the boys finished telling the pathetic story. 
 
 Senora Gomez walked into the room, looked at 
 the three, and saw that the boys were waiting for 
 the man to speak. 
 
 " Why, Gabriel," she said, " what is troubling 
 you?" 
 
 " I have been a bad son and a worse father," 
 answered Gabriel. " It seems that the mountains 
 speak a language wliich Manuel's heart caught and 
 answered. I could not have made a peon of him, 
 although I meant to do so." 
 
 Then the story was told over again to Senora 
 Gomez. She learned of Donna Hulita's book, and 
 that Manuel went to school with the little girls in 
 order that he might learn to read it, while Benito 
 made figures in clay outside the door. 
 
 " While Manuel goes to the military school, you 
 shall go to the art school and learn to be an artist," 
 said the Senora to Benito.
 
 IO4 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 " That will do very well," said Benito in a daze. 
 But when he could get Manuel off by himself to 
 question him, Benito confessed that his head still 
 felt as if it were made of wax. " What is it all 
 about ? " he asked. " This stranger, Senor Gabriel, 
 how can it be that you can take him for a father so 
 suddenly ? " 
 
 " You did not listen, Benito," said Manuel, " or 
 you would have heard them telling how he has 
 been away in the Spanish country all these years, 
 and was the most famous matador there." 
 
 " And is he going to give it all up for the sake 
 of being a father to you ? " asked Benito in surprise. 
 
 " Yes," said Manuel. 
 
 " You are not worth it, old Manuelito," answered 
 Benito shortly ; but he put his arm over the boy's 
 shoulder as he spoke.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SIGHT-SEEING WITH SENOR GABRIEL 
 
 " There comes the President ! Look quick ! " 
 
 " Do sit still, Benito. You will see much bet- 
 ter if you sit still." 
 
 " No, Manuel, it is not so. I should see nothing 
 at all if I should sit like a pyramid as you do. 
 Look at those flags. I can count over one hundred 
 of them. And did you see the flowers in the bay- 
 onets as we came in ? " 
 
 " Yes, crazy one, I saw everything ; even the 
 flowers under the cannon balls." 
 
 " That is just like you, Manuel, you see things 
 without even looking at them." 
 
 " One could not help looking at so many flowers 
 and banners and electric lights, Benito." 
 
 " Keep still, Manuel. Why do you keep on talk- 
 ing when the President is coming ? " 
 
 " Keep still yourself, Benito." 
 
 The boys' voices were suddenly drowned as the 
 band struck into the " Porfirio Diaz March," and 
 the President of Mexico entered through an aisle of 
 soldiers and cadets and passed to the stage. 
 105
 
 IO6 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 It was the night for the distribution of prizes at 
 the military academy. It seemed as if everybody 
 in Mexico City was in the great theatre to see the 
 sight. 
 
 Streamers, military emblems and banners were 
 everywhere. Flowers wreathed the cannon which 
 lined the entrance. Even the bayonets had been 
 turned into bouquet holders, and from chandelier 
 to chandelier hung festoons of evergreen and Cha- 
 pultepec moss. The pillars of the patio were 
 draped with flags and wreaths of flowers. 
 
 The cadets, for whom all this display was made, 
 seemed a company of gods to the two little boys. 
 Manuel could not help thinking of the time when 
 he, too, might perhaps receive a medal from the 
 President. 
 
 At the thought, all the people became a blur to 
 his eyes and his heart thumped against his ribs. 
 He looked up speechless into the face of Sefior 
 Gabriel who sat beside him. 
 
 The man looked down, saw what was in the boy's 
 face and heart, and took the little hand into his 
 own. Manuel snuggled close to him, and from 
 that moment either would have fought men or bulls 
 for the other. 
 
 Benito, on the other side of Manuel, knew noth- 
 ing of what was going on between the boy and his 
 father. He was wriggling about, sticking his el-
 
 SIGHT-SEEING WITH SENOR GABRIEL IQJ 
 
 bows into Manuel, and asking question after ques- 
 tion without waiting for an answer. 
 
 " Is this not better than seeing the palace at Cha- 
 pultepec, or riding on the canal, or going to the 
 pyramids ? " he said. 
 
 There had been a month of sight-seeing since 
 Senor Gabriel's home-coming. To see the cadets 
 receive medals from the hand of the President was 
 the climax to many pleasures which the boys had 
 had since the posada. 
 
 First they had asked to see the barracks of the 
 cadets. That meant a drive along one of the most 
 beautiful avenues in the world, from the center of 
 Mexico City out to Chapultepec Hill. Chapultepec 
 means " grasshopper." " The Hill of the Grass- 
 hopper," repeated Benito in delight. 
 
 The way lay under great trees, and past charm- 
 ing little parks where the boys saw some of the 
 finest statues in America. The road wound up 
 the hill through a forest of cypress trees from 
 which hung gray moss in festoons of beauty. 
 
 The boys took the drive late one afternoon, at 
 the time when everybody in Mexico City who owns 
 a pair of handsome horses takes the same drive. 
 
 Benito, of course, was wild with excitement over 
 the splendor of it all. As the carriages containing 
 beautiful women and children rolled by, the horses 
 tossing their heads, the silver trappings of the har-
 
 IO8 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 ness clinking, Senor Gabriel found it necessary to 
 hold the boy for fear he might fall out of the car- 
 riage in his enthusiasm. 
 
 But in the misty loveliness of the drive up the 
 hill to the President's palace, Benito sat quite still, 
 too enchanted to stir. 
 
 The barracks adjoin the palace at the top of the 
 hill, as the cadets act as a body-guard to the Presi- 
 dent. It was here that Manuel's feeling found 
 expression, not in what he said, but in the way he 
 held his head very high and walked proudly. 
 
 It is true that he always held his head high 
 enough, but in Chapultepec Castle, with its memo- 
 ries of emperors, and its presence of three hundred 
 i>igh-spirited cadets, something in Manuel's eye and 
 bearing made his friend Benito say, " Don't be so 
 proud, old Manuel, or you'll scare people." 
 
 Senor Gabriel smiled at both the boys. " We 
 will try sight-seeing on La Viga canal next," he 
 said, " There is nothing there to make one feel too 
 proud." 
 
 La Viga canal runs from the city to a small lake. 
 Along the banks are straggling Indian villages. 
 The Indians from these villages carry their market 
 produce into the city on the canal. Sometimes 
 their flat-bottomed boats almost hide the water. 
 At other times canoes and dug-outs carry pleasure 
 parties from the city to Santa Anita. From this
 
 SIGHT-SEEING WITH SENOR GABRIEL IOQ 
 
 village one may take a little trip to the wonderful 
 floating gardens. 
 
 Once a year there is the Feast of Flowers, when 
 the canal is a fairyland. Then the water is covered 
 with large and small boats, all manned by Indians. 
 Bands play along the shore, and in the boats In- 
 dian women and girls, with wreaths of poppies on 
 their heads and garlands of flowers around their 
 necks, sing weird Indian songs, picking the strings 
 of a guitar for an accompaniment. 
 
 The boys saw only a quiet, pleasant sight when 
 they took their trip. Sefior Gabriel chose a flat- 
 bottomed boat to please Benito. " The boats of 
 Cortez had to be flat-bottomed to get anywhere 
 near the City of Mexico on this canal." he said, 
 " and we will imagine we are some of the stragglers 
 of his army." 
 
 " How many boats did he have ? " asked Manuel. 
 
 " Thirteen brigantines," answered Senor Gabriel, 
 " and they were launched on Lake Texcoco to the 
 roar of artillery and military music." 
 
 " Cortez could not have done much without the 
 help of those Tlaxcalans," observed Benito. 
 
 " They were a great aid, first and last," an- 
 swered Senor Gabriel, " first in building the boats 
 and carrying them to the lake, and last in tearing 
 down the temples and palaces of the Aztecs." 
 
 " You must have missed the sight of so many
 
 IIO MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 ruins when you were in the Spanish Country," said 
 Benito. " Wherever we go in Mexico we see a 
 few ruins." 
 
 Senor Gabriel laughed again. " There are many 
 interesting ruins in Spain, too," he said, " but not 
 so many as in Mexico. " To-morrow we will go 
 to see the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of 
 the Moon. Then we shall have a great respect for 
 a people who could build so well that even earth- 
 quakes have not destroyed their work." 
 
 It was a trip of about thirty miles from Mexico 
 City to the pyramids, and Senor Gabriel found the 
 boys very quiet through it all. They listened to the 
 stories of history that he had to tell, history as old 
 as that of Egypt, but they cared little for them. 
 
 They liked better the stir and life of the city 
 behind them and were glad to return to it. 
 
 " If it is wonders that we are to see," said 
 Benito, " we can see them back in the city." 
 
 On the way back he said wistfully, " There is but 
 one wish that I have a feeling to make." 
 
 " What is that ?" asked Senor Gabriel. 
 
 " It is a very big wish. I do not think it could be 
 given," said Benito humbly. 
 
 " You may tell it and we will see," said the man 
 encouragingly. 
 
 Benito looked up into his face. He saw much 
 there that reminded him of many things. " Your
 
 SIGHT-SEEING WITH SENOR GABRIEL III 
 
 pardon," he said as Juana had bidden, " may I 
 whisper to Manuel ? " and when permission was 
 given he whispered at great length in Manuel's ear. 
 " He says," said Manuel after the whispering 
 was over, " that Juan and Jose and the others, es- 
 pecially Pedro, would be glad if they could come to 
 Mexico City and see but one thing. Benito would 
 choose to let them see the Alameda, but I would 
 choose to let it be the castle at Chapultepec with 
 the barracks and the cadets."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 JUAN'S LETTER 
 
 It was morning at the hacienda. The birds sang 
 their merriest and the flowers bloomed their bright- 
 est; but loneliness and longing for the boys who 
 were gone filled the hearts of the boys who re- 
 mained. 
 
 They gathered listlessly and only when the ab- 
 sent ones were mentioned did their faces brighten 
 into the old cheerfulness. 
 
 Pedro fixed his eyes upon the mountains in some- 
 thing of Manuel's old way, moving only when 
 Juan spoke after a long silence. "If we but knew 
 the way, we might walk to Mexico City and see it 
 for ourselves," he said. 
 
 " I, for one, care nothing for Mexico City, but 
 for Manuel and Benito, without whom the city 
 must be a poor place," said Pedro. 
 
 " An earthquake might have opened the ground 
 and swallowed them, for all that we have heard of 
 them since they went away," grumbled Jose. 
 
 The rest of the band agreed with him, sure that 
 whatever of splendor or greatness lay upon the city 
 
 112
 
 JUAN'S LETTER 113 
 
 was there because Manuel and Benito shed it from 
 their own radiance. 
 
 " The overseer who took them away will be back 
 to-day," said Juan. " He has been on a long jour- 
 ney to the north and has just returned through 
 Mexico City." 
 
 " Stupid, why did you not tell us before? " cried 
 Pedro. " Let us go to the station. We will meet 
 the train and hear what he has to say." 
 
 But it was a long time before they could get the 
 overseer to themselves. There were many things 
 for him to tell Don Felipe before he had leisure for 
 the boys. At last he stood before them and took 
 a letter from his pocket. " Will you read it, 
 Juan ? " he asked politely, holding it toward him. 
 
 But Juan waved it away discreetly. " I kiss your 
 hand, Senor," he said, " pray read it yourself." 
 
 So the overseer opened it, and read : 
 
 " Vamonos, Juan! Vamonos, All! 
 
 " This is from Manuel in Mexico City, 
 and also from Benito, for what is the use 
 of two letters when there is but one thing 
 to say? 
 
 " Senor Gabriel is to write it. And who 
 is Senor Gabriel ? ' Ah, that is the won- 
 derful thing. It is as wonderful as if a 
 star should fall from the sky. We
 
 114 MANUEL IN MEXICO 
 
 always thought wonderful things would 
 happen on the other side of the mountain, 
 and we were right. But when one is in 
 the habit of expecting the stars to fall, 
 the surprise is not so great when it really 
 happens. 
 
 " Manuel has found a father ! And this 
 father is Senor Gabriel! And it does 
 not seem wonderful any longer, but as if 
 it might always have been so, yet he will 
 always be a wonderful man, because he 
 has been a famous matador. Now, are 
 you not surprised? 
 
 " And he is going to take us to the 
 hacienda that we may once again see the 
 coffee trees with their red berries shining 
 through the leaves, and hear if the 
 hacienda birds sing more sweetly than they 
 do here in the city. 
 
 " And most wonderful of all, you are 
 all to come back with us and see for your- 
 selves the many new things that happen 
 here all day long. And there is no need 
 to think of centavos. Senor Gabriel can- 
 not need any of yours because he has 
 plenty of his own, and he will take care 
 of everything. 
 
 " Adios."
 
 JUAN S LETTER 115 
 
 Twice did the overseer have to read the letter 
 through before the boys seemed to understand its 
 meaning. Then a mighty shout rose from them 
 all. 
 
 " What is all the noise about ? " asked old Juana 
 of little Pepita. 
 
 " It is from Manuel's band," answered the child. 
 " They are shouting with joy because it is promised 
 to them that they shall go over the mountains and 
 see what it is like in Manuel's land."
 
 VOCABULARY 
 
 a do be (a do' ba), unburnt brick dried in the sun. 
 
 a di os (a de' 6s), good-bye. 
 
 Al a me da (a la ma' da), a park in Mexico City. 
 
 al gua cil (al gwa zeT), the officer who opens a bull- 
 fight. 
 
 A me ca me ca (a ma ca ma' ca), a town in Mexico. 
 
 Az tec (az' tek), an Indian race that inhabited Mexico 
 at the time of the Spanish conquest. 
 
 Be ni to (ba ne' to), a boy's name. 
 
 Be ni to Juar ez (ba ne' to hoo a' reth), a full-blooded 
 Indian, elected president of Mexico in 1861. 
 
 bur' ro, a donkey. 
 
 bur' ro cor ri do (cor re' do), the Mexican game of 
 leap-frog. 
 
 buen os (boo an' 6s), good. 
 
 ca ne la (ca na' la), a word used in a Mexican "count- 
 ing out " verse. 
 
 car ga dor', a man who carries freight or express bun- 
 dles. 
 
 ca' sa, house, dwelling. 
 
 cen ta vo (then ta' vo), a cent. 
 
 Chal' co, a lake near Mexico City. 
 
 Cha pul te pec (cha pool' ta pek), a fortified hill near 
 Mexico City. 
 
 Cor tez (kor' tez),a Spaniard who conquered Mexico. 
 
 di as (de' as), day. 
 
 Di az (de' ath), a Mexican surname. 
 
 do' la, a word used in a Mexican " counting out " verse. 
 
 D8n, a title meaning Sir, Mr. 
 
 DSn' na, a title meaning Madam, Mrs.
 
 VOCABULARY 117 
 
 Fe li pe (fa le' pa), a man's name. 
 
 fi es ta (fe as' ta), feast, festivity. 
 
 fri jo les (fre ho' les), beans. 
 
 Ga bri el (ga' bre el), a man's name. 
 
 Go mez (go' meth), a surname. 
 
 gri to (gre' to), Mexican declaration of independence. 
 
 ha gen da' do (a than da' do), the owner of a hacienda. 
 
 ha ci en da (a the an' da), a cultivated farm, a large 
 estate. 
 
 has ta (as' ta), until. 
 
 Hi dal go (e dal' go), the first leader of the Mexican 
 war for independence. 
 
 Hu li ta (hoo le' ta), a woman's name. 
 
 I tur bi de (e ter be' da), a Mexican revolutionist, af- 
 terward emperor of Mexico. 
 
 Ixtlilxochitl (est lei h5 chef 1), a Mexican prince, born 
 about 1500. 
 
 Ix tac ci huatl (es tak se' hwatl), a volcano in Mexico. 
 
 Jo se (ho za'), a man's name. 
 
 Ju an (hoo an'), John. 
 
 Ju an a (hoo an' a), a girl's name. 
 
 Juar ez (hoo a' reth), a surname. 
 
 La Vi ga (la ve' ga), a canal in the City of Mexico. 
 
 le pe ro (la pa' ro), a worthless fellow. 
 
 Lu is (loo e'), a man's name. 
 
 mag uey (mag' wa), a cactus, the century plant. 
 
 Man u el (man' 55 al), a boy's name. 
 
 Man u el i to (man 55 al e' to), little Manuel. 
 
 ma ta dor (ma ta dor'), the man who kills the bull in a 
 bullfight. 
 
 Mi guel (me gel'), a man's name. 
 
 Mit la (met' la), a group of ruins in the state of Oaxaca. 
 
 Mon te zu ma (mon ta zo5' ma), a war chief of an- 
 cient Mexico. 
 
 mu cha cho (m5o cha' cho), boy. 
 
 Na ci mi en to (na the me an' to), birth, nativity. 
 
 na gual (na' gooal).
 
 Il8 VOCABULARY. 
 
 non, no. 
 
 Oa xa ca (wa ha' ka), a state in Mexico, 
 pa ti o (pa' te 6), court, open space in front of or en- 
 closed by a house. 
 Pe dro (pa' dro), a boy's name. 
 
 pe on (pa' on), a Mexican Indian of the lower class. 
 pe so (pa' so), a Mexican dollar worth fifty cents of 
 
 our money. 
 
 Pe pi ta (pa pe' ta), a girl's name, 
 pin a ta (pen ya' ta), a Christmas toy. 
 pla za (pla' tha), a square, a market place. 
 P6 po' cat a petl, a volcano in Mexico. 
 Por fi ri o Di az (por fe' re 6 de' ath), a president of 
 
 Mexico. 
 
 po sa'da, a Mexican Christmas festivity. 
 Pueb la (pweb' la), a state and city in Mexico, 
 pul que (pul' ka), a Mexican liquor. 
 re bo so (ra bo' so), a covering for the head worn by 
 
 Mexican women. 
 
 Sa era Mon te (sa crS Mon' ti), a hill in Mexico. 
 Sal til lo (sal te' yo), a city in Mexico. 
 San' cho, a name. 
 
 San ta An i ta (san' ta an e' ta), a town in Mexico, 
 se nor (sa ny6r'), Sir, Mister. 
 se no ra (sa ny6' ra), Lady, Madam, Mrs. 
 se ra pe (sa ra' pa), a blanket or shawl. 
 si (se), yes. 
 
 sorn bre ro (som bra' ro), a broad-brimmed Mexican hat. 
 te-la (ta' 14), a word used in a Mexican "counting out" 
 
 verse. 
 
 Tex co co (tas ko' ko), a lake near Mexico City. 
 Tlax ca la (tlas ka' la), a state in Mexico. 
 tor til la (tor tee' ya), a pancake made of Indian corn, 
 
 mashed and baked on an earthen pan. 
 u na (u' na), a word used in a Mexican "counting 
 
 out " verse.
 
 LJTTI ,F.-PFOFL: 
 
 JUI 9 
 
 Date Due
 
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