26 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



medicine for the sick one, invalid food, etc. 

 Soon the sorrowing parent returned : * Ah ! 

 my boy, my muchacho, he is dead ! Ah, 

 triste, triste !' His white friends lavished 

 more sympathy, and, better still, more 

 money, this time to buy a coffin for the 

 muchacho. The tragedy was repeated, in 

 the course of a few weeks, with the same 

 results, only on the next occasion the victim 

 was a girl for whom the neighbourly offices 

 of the Americans were entreated. 'And 

 would you believe it,' concluded my in- 

 formant, laughing heartily, * my husband 

 happened to have business down that way 

 recently, and he discovered that not only 

 had none of Jose Martillo's children died, 

 but that he had never had any to die.' 



After relating this episode, it is but fair to 

 add that the Mexicans are exceedingly good 

 to one another either in trouble or sickness, 

 and that while the well-provided ranchero 

 will be slow, nay, obdurate, about giving 

 money, he will permit his children and his 

 children's children to abide almost inde- 

 finitely beneath the ancestral roof. 



But intelligence ! Now, here is Juan, who 



