Lippincotts Magazine, October 1885 | Page 4

sensational or picturesque intentions, and by the small farmers with
irrigation patches in the vicinity. It was likewise the resort of
Encarnacion and Tomas, and others their brethren, from the Mexican
village a few miles up the creek, or from isolated abiding-places round
about. Here they would come, and, rolling cigarettes of the brown
paper they affect and the eleemosynary tobacco open on the counter, to
which all were welcome (such were the amenities of shopping on the
ranch), they would lounge about, ever smiling and chattering in soft
voices, finally to say 'uenos dias with two bits' worth of bacon, or
corn-meal, or pink candy for the chiquitas. Here, too, would come
Tomasa, and, with even more than usual feminine zeal in matters of
dress, at once try on the ready-made calico gown she purchased, while
the store-keeper smoked his pipe and stroked his beard.
Excepting the cow-boys, the people composing the clientage of the
store were for the most part resident in one of two farm-settlements
located on the creek, about ten miles apart, one exclusively Mexican,
the other almost entirely "white." Besides these, the families of many of
the Mexican hands lived close by. These last were constantly assisting
conversation at the cottages with such incidents as the following:
The cook--a tall, gaunt negro of a mediaevally "intense" nature--came
in with an excited manner, followed by Madame Alguin, very much
troubled, wringing her hands, and dissolved in tears.
"Panchot's little boy," said the cook, "is killed."
We were naturally aghast. Little Panchot had been colero at the recent
shearing.
"Is he dead?" we queried hoarsely.
"He was dead," replied the cook, with seriousness: "he is not dead

now."
With this light and delicate touch the cook swept the gamut of our
emotions from awe at little Panchot's sudden taking off to pleasure at
his speedy resurrection. We repaired at once to Madame Alguin's
residence to view the subject of this miracle: lest the miracle should not
be so complete as one might wish, we carried with us a little hartshorn
and Pond's extract. Madame Alguin's villa was a fine wide-spreading
live-oak, with a tent as a sort of annex, about two minutes from the
ranch. On our arrival we found four Mexican women, seven children,
one man, three dogs, four goats, and several roosters, gathered round
the form of little Panchot stretched beneath the live-oak. A fire
smouldered a little way off, and a cradle hung from the branch of the
fatherly tree. Little Panchot had a nasty cut about an inch long through
his cheek. He had been herding his goats on the bank of the creek when
he was knocked over by a stone from the other side. He swooned,--then
he was dead; he came to,--and, _presto_, he was alive again. He was
soon running about with his wonted friskiness, and making himself
useful in chasing wild tennis-balls. This little boy's mother was, poor
woman, very much of a sloven, but he had a string of little sisters who
were as nice as could be. They went about in white cotton
gowns--amazingly clean, considering that they lived under a tree--tied
at the waist with red scarfs; their black hair was smoothly gathered at
the backs of their pretty heads, and they had a demure and quaintly
maternal air; they looked at you with a tranquil, moon-like gaze, which
seemed to say that their ideas, which were on the way, had tarried for
the moment in some boon southern country.

III.
In riding about the range it was very pleasant to find, as one constantly
did, by the side of some "motte" (Texan for a considerable cluster of
scrub growth), or beneath the shade of a great live-oak, or on the barren
face of a divide, the little canvas A-tents of the herders, nestled cosily
to circular pens for the sheep, and generally surrounded by brush to
prevent the intrusion of inquisitive cattle. Within the tent a sheepskin or
so, stretched on the ground or on a lattice of branches, for his bed, and
without, a padlocked chest, with a coffee mill screwed to the top, in
which he keeps his rations, a skillet and a few other utensils hanging

from the branches of a neighboring tree, a whitened buffalo's skull for a
_metate_, a smouldering fire,--this little spot, with its surrounding
fence shutting out the solitude, is the herder's palace, schloss, villa,
town-and country-house. "_Seguro_," says Juan, as he lights a brown
cigarette and quenches the yellow fuse in an empty cartridge-shell,
"man wants but little here below." They were a genial and hospitable
set, the herders, and if one arrived about mid-day they would regale
him with scraps of jerked beef, a cake of unleavened bread cooked in
the skillet, and coffee which, considering what