Which I doubts some if I’m a proper party to be a historian of Mexicans. Nacherally I abhors ’em; an’ when a gent abhors anything, that is a Caucasian gent, you-all can gamble the limit he won’t do it jestice. His prejudices is bound to hit the surface like one of these yere rock ledges in the mountains. Be white folks ag’in Mexicans? Gents, the paleface is ag’in everybody but himse’f; ag’in Mexicans, niggers, Injuns, Chinks—he’s ag’in ’em all; the paleface is overbearin’ an’ insolent, an’ because he’s the gamest fighter he allows he’s app’inted of Providence to prance ‘round, tyrannizin’ an’ makin’ trouble for everybody whose color don’t match his own. Shore, I’m as bad as others; only I ain’t so bigoted I don’t savey the fact.
Doc Peets is the one white gent I encounters who’s willin’ to mete out to Mexicans a squar’ deal from a squar’ deck. I allers reckons these yere equities on Peets’ part arises a heap from his bein’ a scientist. You take a scientist like Peets an’ the science in him sort o’ submerges an’ drowns out what you-all might term the racial notions native to the hooman soil. They comes to concloosions dispassionate, that a-way, scientists does; an’ Mexicans an’ Injuns reaps a milder racket at their hands. With sech folks as Old Man Enright an’ me, who’s more indoorated an’ acts on that arrogance which belongs with white folks at birth, inferior races don’t stand no dazzlin’ show.
Mexicans, as a herd, is stunted an’ ondeveloped both mental an’ physical. They bears the same compar’son to white folks that these yere little broncos does to the big hosses of the States. In intellects, Mexicans is about ’leven hands high. To go into one of their jimcrow plazas is like retreatin’ back’ard three hundred years. Their idees of agriculture is plenty primitive. An’ their minds is that bogged down in ignorance you-all can’t teach ’em nothin’. They clings to their worm-eaten customs like a miser to his money. Their plow is a wedge of wood; they hooks on about three yoke of bulls—measley, locoed critters—an’ with four or five Greasers to screech an’ herd an’ chunk up the anamiles they goes stampedin’ back’ard an’ for’ard on their sandy river-bottom fields—the same bein’ about as big as a saddle blanket—an’ they calls that plowin’. They sows the grain as they plows, sort o’ scratches it in; an’ when it comes up they don’t cut it none same as we-all harvests a crop. No; they ain’t capable of sech wisdom. They pulls it up by the roots an’ ties it in bundles. Then they sweeps off a clean spot of earth like the floor of one of these yere brickyards an’ covers it with the grain same as if it’s a big mat. Thar’s a corral constructed ‘round it of posts an’ lariats; an’ next, on top of the mat of grain, they drives in the loose burros, cattle, goats, an’ all things else that’s got a hoof; an’ tharupon they jams this menagerie about ontil the grain is trodden out. That’s what a Greaser regyards as threshin’ grain, so you can estimate how ediotic he is. When it’s trompled sufficient, he packs off the stalks an’ straw to make mats an’ thatches for the ’dobies; while he scrapes up the dust an’ wheat into a blanket an’ climbs onto the roof of his casa an’ pours it down slow onto the ground, an’ all so it gives the wind a openin’ to get action an’ blow away the chaff an’ dust.
But what’s the use of dilatin’ on savageries like that? I could push for’ard an’ relate how they makes flour with a stone rollin’-pin in a stone trough; how they grinds coffee by wroppin’ it in a gunny sack an’ beatin’ it with a rock; but where’s the good? It would only go lowerin’ your estimates of hooman nature to no end.
Whatever be their amoosements? Everything on earth amooses ’em. They has so many holidays, Mexicans does, they ain’t hardly left no time for work. They’re pirootin’ about constant, grinnin’ an’ chatterin’ like a outfit of bloo-jays.
No; they ain’t singers none. Takin’ feet an’ fingers, that a-way, a Mexican is moosical. They emerges a heap strong at dancin’, an’ when it conies to a fandango, hens on hot griddles is examples of listless abstraction to ’em. With sech weepons, too, as guitars an’ fiddles an’ a gourd half-full of gravel to shake an’ beat out the time, they can make the scenery ring. Thar they stops, however; a Greaser’s moosic never mounts higher than the hands. At singin’, crows an’ guinea chickens lays over ’em like a spade flush over nines-up.
Most likely if I reelates to you-all the story of a day among the Mexicans you comes to a cl’arer glimpse of their loves an’ hates an’ wars an’ merry-makin’s. Mexicans, like Injuns when a paleface is about, lapses into shyness an’ timidity same as one of these yere cottontail rabbits. But among themse’fs, when they feels onbuckled an’ at home, their play runs off plenty different. Tharfore a gent’s got to study Mexicans onder friendly auspices, an’ from the angle of their own home-life, if he’s out to rope onto concloosions concernin’ them that’ll stand the tests of trooth.
It’s one time when I’m camped in the Plaza Chaparita. It’s doorin’ the eepock when I freights from Vegas to the Canadian over the old Fort Bascom trail. One of the mules—the nigh swing mule, he is—quits on me, an’ I has to lay by ontil that mule recovers his sperits.
It’s a fieste or holiday at the Plaza Chaparita. The first local sport I connects with is the padre. He’s little, brown, an’ friendly; an’ has twinklin’ beady eyes like a rattlesnake; the big difference bein’ that the padre’s eyes is full of fun, whereas the optics of rattlesnakes is deevoid of humor utter. Shore; rattlesnakes wouldn’t know a joke from the ace of clubs.
The padre’s on his way to the ’dobe church; an’ what do you-all figger now that divine’s got onder his arm? Hymn books, says you? That’s where you’re barkin’ at a knot. The padre’s packin’ a game chicken—which the steel gaffs, drop-socket they be an’ of latest sort, is in his pocket—an’ as I goes squanderin’ along in his company, he informs me that followin’ the services thar’ll be a fight between his chicken an’ a rival brass-back belongin’ to a commoonicant named Romero. The padre desires my presence, an’ in a sperit of p’liteness I allows I’ll come idlein’ over onless otherwise engaged, the same bein’ onlikely.
Gents, you should have witnessed that battle! It’s shore lively carnage; yes, the padre’s bird wins an’ downs Romero’s entry the second buckle.
On the tail of the padre’s triumph, one of his parishioners gets locoed, shakes a chicken outen a bag an’ proclaims that he’ll fight him ag’in the world for two dollars a side. At that another enthoosiast gives notice that if the first parishioner will pinch down his bluff to one dollar—he says he don’t believe in losin’ an’ winnin’ fortunes on a chicken—he’ll prodooce a bird an’ go him once.
The match is made, an’ while the chickens is facin’ each other a heap feverish an’ fretful, peckin’ an’ see-sawin’ for a openin’, the various Greasers who’s bet money on ’em lugs out their beads an’ begins to pray to beat four of a kind. Shore, they’re prayin’ that their partic’lar chicken ’ll win. Still, when I considers that about as many Greasers is throwin’ themse’fs at the throne of grace for one as for the other, if Providence is payin’ any attention to ’em—an’ I deems it doubtful—I estimates that them orisons is a stand-off.
As the birds goes to the center, one party sprinkles something on his chicken. At that the opposition grabs up his bird an’ appeals to the padre. He challenges the other’s bird because he says he’s been sprinkled with holy-water.
The padre inquires, an’ the holy-water sharp conf............