THE LITTLE TOWN OF THE GRAPE VINES 



gardens and the young quail cry " cuidado',' 

 " have a care ! " you can hear the plu7np, 

 plump of the metate from the alcoves of the 

 vines where comfortable old dames, whose 

 experience gives them the touch of art, are 

 pounding out corn for tamales. 



School-teachers from abroad have tried 

 before now at Las Uvas to have school 

 begin on the first of September, but got 

 nothins: else to stir in the heads of the little 

 Castros, Garcias, and Romeros but feasts 

 and cock-fights until after the Sixteenth. 

 Perhaps you need to be told that this is 

 the anniversary of the Republic, when 

 liberty awoke and cried in the provinces 

 of Old Mexico. You are aroused at mid- 

 night to hear them shouting in the streets, 

 ^'Vive la Libertadf' answered from the 

 houses and the recesses of the vines, " Vive 

 la Mexico I " At sunrise shots are fired 

 275 



