158 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



unless unless you have a skin of leather 

 and deaf ears through which the roof-raising 

 sighs of well-nourished martyrs cannot pierce. 

 It is assumed that your household is very 

 small, but that your Portly One may have 

 no excuse for failing to be your * help and 

 comfort/ you provide her with intermittent 

 native assistance. With these Mexicans, 

 should she have picked up a smattering of 

 their tongue, she gossips or plays the bully, 

 and they loathe her with a loathing that 

 promptly and permanently annihilates all 

 hope of immunity from domestic uproar. 



'But I wish you, Valentina, to take your 

 orders from the other senora !' you ejaculate, 

 upon the tenth interruption in one hour by 

 an excited senorita. 



* No, senora no, I cannot! I go if you 

 will not tell me what to do yourself. 1 



Upon: expostulating with your Portly One 

 for her roughness to her aide, she shouts : 



' I tell you 7 kep' a gyurl in my day, and 

 I never let her do me as your gyurl does 

 you, you bet ! She imposes on you awful.' 



Therefore she sees to it that all the 

 4 imposing ' and there is plenty of it shall 



