THE POTATO AT HOME 305 
my father would laugh and say: “This one 
weighs fourteen ounces and a half; this fifteen 
and three-quarters; this one just turns the balance 
at sixteen, and this one seventeen ounces. What 
do you say to that?” The other would reply that 
he couldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen and 
handled the potato himself, and my father would 
be happy and triumphant. 
Not only were the potatoes of that land as large 
as any in the world, but they were probably the 
best in the world to eat. They were beautifully 
white and mealy, with that crystalline sparkle of the 
properly cooked potato in them which one rarely 
sees in this country. Strange to say, our Spanish 
neighbours, even those who had a garden, did not 
grow or eat them; they were confined to the 
English settlers and a few foreigners of other 
nationalities. 
Here I will venture to relate an incident which, 
though trivial, goes to show how little our native 
neighbours knew about the potato, which was so 
important to us; and at the same time it will 
serve to illustrate a trait common to the native of 
that land—the faculty of keeping his face. 
A young girl of about twelve, the child of poor 
natives living in a small ranch a couple of miles 
from us, was invited by a little sister of mine to 
come and spend a day with her, to look at dolls 
and other treasures, eat peaches, and enjoy herself 
generally. We were a big family, but my sister’s 
little guest, Juanita, took her place at table as if 
