THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 41 



The Mexican labourer is like the negro 

 in one respect, only more so. Your life, if 

 you are a ranchman, or, more luckless yet, 

 a ranchwoman, is largely spent in gathering 

 up the fragments that remain. Neverthe- 

 less, your utmost efforts do not avail to 

 maintain the order and neatness which should 

 be the sign-manual of a ranch ; yet, if you 

 have already served an apprenticeship with 

 the happy-go-lucky darkey, you submit to the 

 inevitable with at least a fair show of philo- 

 sophy. If after many weary days your 

 Mexican has been induced, with occasional 

 lapses from grace, to keep his waggon, 

 ploughs, etc., in their appointed places, there 

 still remains to you the felicity of 'picking 

 up ' after him. He has been led to mend a 

 gate ; there lies the hammer on the ground. 

 A rope has been used to temporarily tie a 

 horse ; there lies the rope. You wander 

 through sheds and barns, gathering, or 

 making him gather, pieces of harness, spades, 

 hatchets everything, in short, that should 

 not be just where it is. Or you don't, and 

 the unfailing moment arrives when work 

 presses and some indispensable article re- 



