Roy and Ray in Mexico

I

m.

imr fe^

W

M'

Class p VJ^>lA

Book_iiAi

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT ii».

PoRFiRio Diaz, Presidekt of Mexico

ROY AND RAY

IN

MEXICO

BY

MARY WRIGHT PLUMMER

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

Y

LIBRARY of CONGRESS TwQ OoDtes Received MAY 24 190?

COPY B.

Copyright, 1907,

BY

Pubhslied May, tqoy

THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY. N. J.

1'(

To the many American children

Whose travels have been chiefly in imagination, this account of a visit to our great next-door neighbour^ is dedicated, with the hope that they may some day see its wonders with their oivn eyes

Preface

This volume does not pretend to be a guide-book to Mexico, or a history of the country. It is simply the record of an actual journey to seven or eight Mexican cities and towns, as experienced by two intelligent, wide-awake children, with some one at hand to answer their questions and call their attention to things they might otherwise not have noticed. If the assurance of one boy to whom the manuscript was read, that "it would be interesting to anybody who wanted to know about Mexico," proves to be well-founded, the object of its writing will have been attained.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Beginning 1

II. To "San Antone" 14

Chapter I The Beginning

Roy and Ray Stevens were twins, and were about eleven years old when they made their first long journey. They had gone from New York to Boston several times, to see their grandmother, and they had once made the trip by boat from New York to Portland, Maine; but these were trifling journeys compared with the one they were now going to take.

Their home was in a New Jersey suburb of New York, and their bedrooms were small adjoining ones with a door between, so that they could talk back and forth at night if they did not feel sleepy. On one particular June morning they were both awake by six o'clock, and found it hard work to stay in bed until seven, which was rising time for the family.

''Boy!" called Ray.

' ' Um-hum, ' ' answered Roy.

"Do you know what day it is?"

''Yes, ma'am, the 25th of June, the day the Stevens family start for Mexico, — and I wish it was time to go right now. ' '

"/ wish the whole Stevens family were going," said Ray, ' ' I do hate to leave Ben and the baby, — I 'm going to miss them awfully. ' '

' ' Grandmother '11 take good care of them, ' ' said Roy.

''I know she will, and Aunt Jenny promised to write and tell all the funny things they do and say, — but that won't be the same as having them right with us."

' ' Pshaw ! You 're homesick already, ' ' said Roy. ''Why don't you stay at home if you're going to feel that way?"

"I want to go — really I do," said Ray, "and when we get started I suppose I'll see things that will make me forget the children part of the time ; but just now, you see, the things haven't begun and I haven't got them to think of. Eoy," — suddenly changing the subject, — "is father very richr'

''I don't know certainly," said Roy, thonglitfully, ^'bnt I guess not very ricli, just comfortable, you know. We haven't got an automobile. ' '

''No, but this is a pretty expensive trip we're going to take, isn't it?"

"I guess it does cost a good deal," said Roy, "but I heard father tell mother one day that if you had a little money, he believed in getting the good of it as you went along, and I suppose that's what he means to do when he takes us to Mexico. I shouldn't wonder if he had some business there, too."

This last was true and this was the reason why the Stevenses were going to Mexico in summer, which is the Mexican rainy season, as Mr. Stevens ' business could not wait until the regular tourist season, which is late winter or early spring and the Mexican dry season. But he had been told by several business friends in Mexico that July and August were really the pleasantest months of the year up on the highlands of Mexico, that one escaped the heat of the States, and that the summer rains had by that time laid the dust, which is the most unpleasant feature of the Mexican climate.

''Have you packed your part of the trunk, Ray?" asked Roy.

"Yes, six times, and every time I forget something or I get so much in that it won't shut, and I have to take something out. Is your part ready now?"

"No," said Roy, "and I guess I'll get up right now and pack it. It'll be something to do."

"Well, don't take any of my space, for I need it all," warned Ray. "Mother's going to look it all over when it's done, anyhow. I was going to put in several papers of pins and all the thread in my work-basket, and she asked me if I thought I was going to a country where you couldn't get pins and thread. She says the shops in Mexico get their things in Paris, and are almost as good as New York shops. You know," confidentially, "until she said that, I had an idea we were going to a kind of heathen country. I was almost afraid we'd have to see a human sacrifice."

"Oh, my! that hasn't been since the daj^s of old — What 's-his-name. You get father to tell you about it. The Mexicans now are just as civilised as you are. Why, Mexico 's a republic. ' '

''Yes, that's so. People have to be pretty civilised for that, don't they?" said Ray, innocently. But Eoy did not answer, and from the hard breathing she heard she guessed that he was already at work stuffing his clothes and other belongings into the bottom of the trunk they were to have together. Presently, as she dressed, she heard a long sigh and a grunt that sounded like dissatisfaction. "What's the matter?" she asked. ^

''I just can't get my baseball suit in, that's what's the matter."

"Your baseball suit?" Ray stopped with her brush in her hand, to look into the room. Roy was kneeling on the floor before the trunk, the picture of despair, while the padded suit protruded from it at all four corners and refused to be pressed down by the tray. "Well, Roy Stevens, if I ever ! ' ' laughed Ray. ' ' Who 's going to play baseball with you down there, I'd like to know."

Roy's frown disappeared slowly, as this new idea made its way to his brain. "Huh!" he said,

"guess I'm crazy. It's a pity, though, for next summer that suit will be too small."

''It will do for little Ben in a couple of years," said Ray, soothingly.

"Course, but that doesn't do me any good. Well, here goes ! ' ' and Eoy pitched the puffy garments into the corner, where the open closet partly caught them.

"Children!" called their mother's voice, "time to get up! There are lots of things to be done before the eleven-o'clock train."

"We're up," answered Ray, and they dressed in a hurry and ran down to breakfast. It was hard for them to eat, though their mother reminded them that it would be a long time before they would again taste Katy's delicious hot rolls or nice croquettes. She kept them busy all the morning, packing and helping her to pack, running on errands, etc., so that eleven o'clock came before they expected it, and they were aboard the local train for New York, waving their hands to friends, neighbours, and servants who had come to see them off.

"Now, we're going!" exclaimed Ray, but Roy said, ' ' No, we Ve often done this much before. We shan't really be going to Mexico till we get on the other train. Something may happen yet." But nothing did. They had luncheon at the station with their big brother, Gilbert, just from college, and in charge of his father's office during their absence, and their sister Dora, who was spending a few weeks in the neighbourhood of New York with a friend; and then the long train pulled out of the train-yards with two very excited and happy children in the sleeper Morpheus.

As the children had never made any long journeys, they had never travelled in a sleeping-car, and their eyes and ears were busy for the first hour investigating their surroundings. In vain did their mother call their attention to the Palisades and Storm King and the other features of Hudson River scenery ; they were interested in the berths and the buffet. They wanted to know where the coloured porter kept the pillows in the daytime, why the upper berths didn't shut up and smother people, how the cooking and serving things could all be kept in the little room called the buffet, how they were going to undress at night ;

and they kept both father and mother busy answering questions.

''But, children, you're missing all this beautiful scenery," said Mrs. Stevens.

"We'll come back this way, shan't we?" asked Roy.

''Yes, I suppose so."

"Well, we'll see it then. I think sleeping-cars are much more interesting just now. What are these little slots for, father?"

' ' To fasten the table into when we have luncheon here in our section. The table has only one leg, and that folds up when it is not in use. ' '

"Oh, yes, I see. Are the screens to keeio out mosquitoes 1 ' '

"That's a New Jersey question, surely. Think a little and you can answer it yourself. Ti-rt's one thing I want you and Ray to learn to do, this trip, — never to ask me or your mother a question until you have tried faithfully to answer it yourself. It will make better travellers of you and pleasanter company for us."

Just then a gust of smoke from the engine blew through the screen and sent a fine black dust into the car. "I see, it's for cinders !" exclaimed Roy, ''but it can't keep the dust and smoke out."

"No, unfortunately, and we shall have to take our share of those evils. ' '

When it grew dark, and the car-lights were turned on, Mrs. Stevens rang for the little table to be fixed into the sockets; the buffet waiter spread a clean white cloth over it and brought in napkins and a pot of coffee, and Mrs. Stevens produced from a box some excellent luncheon she had prepared for the occasion.

' ' I thought there was a dining-car on the train, ' ' said Eoy.

"There is, and we shall take breakfast in it in the morning," said his father, "but as it is table d'hote and one dollar a head, I preferred not to spend twelve dollars a day on our meals when we should probably not eat three dollars' worth of food. Later we shall find an a la carte arrangement, and then we shall use the dining-car regularly."

"What is the difference?" asked Roy.

^^ Table d'hote means that you may call for everything on the bill of fare or only one thing, as you choose, but you must pay a dollar for it in either case; while a la carte (or by the card) means that the price of every dish is given and that you pay for what you order and nothing more. If you wish to eat a long dinner such as the table d'hote provides, it would cost you much more to pay for it by the card ; but if, as is the case with most travellers, you are not ravenously hungry, you can choose some one or two dishes from the bill of fare and make a less expensive and an equally satisfactory meal."

"I'm sure this is satisfactory," said Ray, finishing a piece of the chocolate cake which Katy had made that morning.

''We could have had something from the little cupboard in this car, couldn't we?" said Roy.

''You mean the buffet"? Yes, our coffee was made there, but it wasn't very good. Buffet food as a rule is not appetising."

"Don't you like sleeping-cars, mother? I do," said Ray.

"Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, I'm not as fond of them as of my own room and my own bed at home, but I can generally manage to make myself comfortable and to sleep pretty well. The motion of the train on a good road-bed gets to be rather a help to sleeping."

''Like a cradle 1" asked Ray.

*'Yes, or like the rocking of a ship."

It was not long after the clearing away of the supper-table, before the porter began to make up the berths. The children watched him with attentive eyes, and soon knew just the order in which he did the various things in the bed-making process.

''Porter," said Mr. Stevens, "whenever you're ready. ' '

"Yes, sir, jus' as soon as I put dis lady to baid," said the porter, making the children laugh.

"He talked just as if she were a baby," said Ray.

At last their turn came. The first thing Roy noticed as he drew aside the curtains was that the berth was made up with the head toward the locomotive. "What's that for, father?" he asked. "I should think it would be the other way. Oh, I forgot, — I asked you that without thinking first.

Let me see. ' ' But he could not think of a reason, so his father told him.

''One reason is that you are not in so much danger of catching cold. As the air enters by the screen or through the cracks of the window, it passes by your head and chest without striking them; and if you slept with your head the other way it would fly right at the head and throat. Some people, too, have a theory that with the head this way the blood is driven from the brain by the motion of the train, and that therefore one sleeps better. But the other is a better reason and all we need, I think. ' '

''I should think," said Ray, ''that they wouldn't put so much carving and things on these cars, and would have a bigger dressing-room for the women and little girls. There was another lady there when we were, and we kept hitting each other all the time, and there was only one hook to hang anything on, and she had that, so we had to put my clothes on the floor. I'd rather have a bigger place and not have it so ornamental. ' '

For a half-hour or so, it was hard for the children to get to sleep, with the unaccustomed surroundings, the motion, the noise, the occasional stopping and starting, and the novelty of such a bed, but by the time their father and mother came to their respective berths, both Eoy and Ray were sound asleep and dreaming of the wonders in store for them.

Chapter II To "san Antone"

The next morning, the children were awake so early that they got quite tired lying still until it was time for them to get up. Their mother let them rise and dress as early as was at all convenient, and though the train flung them about more or less while they were dressing, they managed to look almost as well as the day before. Eoy especially looked forward with much interest to breakfast in the dining-car. There was something in the idea of eating at a table and travelling at the same time which seemed very attractive to him, and when he looked over the bill of fare and then unfolded his napkin, he heaved a sigh of satisfaction. And he discussed his grape fruit, his cereal, and his broiled chop so slowly that the family all laughed at him and said he was trying to get his dollar 's worth. As there was very little of interest to see from the car-window on this second day, the children began to observe their fellow-passengers. There were two college boys in whom Roy took an interest, as he heard them comparing the athletics of freshwater and seaboard colleges. Suddenly one of them leaned forward and grasped the other's hand most affectionately, and as the other looked at him in surprise, he said, "I just noticed that design on your cuff-buttons," and then he put his left hand also around the other's hand and shook hands as if he had found a long-lost brother. They gazed at each other, quite unable to express in words their feelings at finding they belonged to the same fraternity, and Roy thought it was beautiful and longed for the day when he should be old enough to join one. Ray found great fascination in a young Mexican lady who fanned very dexterously with two fans, one in each hand, when the day grew warm. She tried it herself with her own and her mother 's fan, but she was not very skilful and only managed to hit herself on the nose continually. The Mexican senorita was very pretty, with dark eyes and a great deal of dark hair, pink cheeks and white teeth, and a very soft voice and charming laugh. She spoke very little English, but as several Americans in the car who lived in Mexico could speak Spanish with her, she did not lack for company, especially as she had with her her brother, who had been studying at a Northern college. Ray did her best to pick up a little Spanish by listening, but could not get further than "/S'i (see)," meaning yes, which she already knew. The day grew very warm, and when luncheon time came, the children cared for nothing but fruit. They had looked at pictures and read from the magazines, looked out the windows and observed their neighbours, taken short naps and nibbled at a box of candy, and now they were entirely out of occupation. * ' I feel just like grandmother 's parrot when she whines, 'What does Polly want?' " said Ray. ''I've done everything I can think of and I can't sleep any more, — can you tell us what to do, mother!"

"I think father is getting something ready for you," said Mrs. Stevens. "Just wait awhile and you'll see." And for some time, indeed, Mr. Stevens had been writing very industriously on a large sheet of paper, Now he began to fold it into squares and to cut the squares apart with, his pocket scissors. Presently he spread the squares out on the little table which the porter had brought him, and began to shuffle them like carde. "Come and play my new game — my Mexican game," he said, "that will wake you up, children. Come, Helen," to Mrs. Stevens, "it may be good for you too."

They all gathered about the table, to try the new game, and were soon so deep in it that they almost forgot the heat. Mr. Stevens had made a game something like the American one of "Authors," but instead of taking Mexican authors he had made it a game of Mexican history to some extent. Under the heading of "Great Aztecs" he had the names of Moctezuma and Axayacatl and Cuauhtemoc; under the heading "Early Spanish Explorers" the names of Cortez and Alvarado and Cordoba, while under each of the headings ' ' Mexican rulers, " " Mexican generals, " " Mexican wars," "Mexican ruins," "Mexican events," and "Mexican cities," he had supplied the three items necessary to make the game possible. Eight sets of four cards each made thirty-two cards, giving each one of the party eight cards to begin with, and four cards made a book, just as in "Authors." If Roy, for instance, had a card headed ' ' Mexican rulers ' ' and found under it the names of ' ' Juarez, ' ' "Maximilian," and "Diaz," he must try to get from the others the three cards having these names at the head, and if he succeeded he would have a book to his credit. But if they noticed that he was calling for these, they would see at once that he must have one card of the book and they would try to get that away from him to help make their own book. Nearly all of you will have played "Authors," so I am sure you will not need further explanation ; and at the end of this chapter you will find a copy of one card under each heading. Roy and Ray, when they had played this game several times, had the main points of Mexico 's history so well fixed in their minds that they scarcely ever made any mistakes, and found all the pictures and labels in the Museum and references in their guide-book much more interesting than they would have thought them otherwise. Their father won the game the first time, and Ray the second; and by then the train was slowing down as they entered St. Louis. As they were obliged to leave the train here and take another, and had an hour or two to spare after getting supper in the dining-room of the great station, they took a drive out to the West End, which is the handsome residence part of this important Western city, and through the World's Fair grounds in Forest Park. When they reached the station again and found their berths in a new train, Mrs. Stevens unpacked their belongings much more extensively than before, for on this train they were to live for three days and four nights.

*'It will get to seem just like home, won't it?" said Ray, to which her mother could only reply "We'll hope so," for she did not enjoy traintravel in the summer.

By the next morning there was enough that was new in the scenes they passed through to make the day more entertaining than the one before. The forlorn little towns of Arkansas, their unpainted, grey wooden houses almost settling into the ground, the wash-basins or bowls on benches out on the front ''gallery," the upstairs verandahs on every two-story house, the washings of many colours strung out on the front fences, the outside chimneys built of mud, the bowl-shaped straw sun-hats that some of the men wore, — all these and many other things kept the children constantly interested. There was one one-story hotel, painted red, with strips of wood painted white tacked over the cracks perpendicularly, that the children said looked like candy ; and when they came soon after to Little Rock, the capital, they made a joke that diverted them very much, calling the hotel Little Rock candy. It does not take anything very funny to amuse people who are ready to be amused, as Roy and Ray were.

It was in Arkansas that they first noticed stations with separate waiting-rooms for the coloured people, who also became more numerous than before. At Texarkana, a name made from Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, because the town is at a point near which the three state lines meet, they first had fruit and vegetables offered to them at the train-windows by small boys. Some had plums, and when a lady who had bought some complained that they were hard, the boy-peddler retorted, "Well, that's the way they are." Other boys had ripe tomatoes and gave a pinch of coarse salt with each tomato, wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. The children thought these very refreshing and preferred them to fruit. As the time drew near for the train to start, the peddlers would come down in their prices and call out, "Peaches, peaches — all I got for a nickel!" or "Peaches and tomatoes for a nickel — everything!"

In one small town they saw a public well with a roof over it and seats around it, and in another, as indeed in most of them, all the stores had "porches" as Eay expressed it, and they saw several merchants playing cards on the street corner on an upturned box, with their hats pushed back and in their shirt sleeves. These things would have told them they had reached the South, even if they had not known it from the heat. Toward evening they went through a small town or village where a whole calf was hanging to a tree instead of in a butcher 's shop, and while they were wondering at this, two men came, one with a large knife with which he proceeded to cut ofi the piece of veal that the other man wanted. But the country still seemed American, though their father reminded them that Texas and part of Arkansas had once belonged to Mexico. Still they did not really feel that they were seeing anything very unusual until they came to San Antonio, or ' ' San Antone," as the natives call it, one of the most foreign-looking cities in the United States. They reached it quite early in the morning, and having three hours to spare, decided to go up into the town for breakfast and a bath, and then see the city by means of a drive. As soon as they stepped out of the train, the children were struck with the town's unlikeness to anything American. The buildings were low, generally with one story, and never with more than two, and built of adobe, a sort of clay found abundantly in the dryer parts of the Southwest. They were not only whitewashed but bluewashed and pinkwashed, as Roy put it, giving a very gay appearance to the streets. The River San Antonio, which winds through the city and is crossed by more than forty bridges, was very pretty in places and bordered by tropical or semi-tropical plants. The hotel and many of the houses had iron balconies upstairs and glass doors opening on to them, so that people could sit in the shade of the trees on these balconies and get the air without being too noticeable. The hotel was built in a hollow square around a court where tropical plants were growing in large pots, and there was an air of great coolness everywhere. After a good breakfast and a bath, Mr. Stevens hired a carriage and driver and they visited the most interesting parts of the city, going down first into the Mexican quarter, where the poorer people live. This quarter is usually called Chihuahua (Che-wah'-wah) in towns which have a Mexican population. Here the people lived in hovels that looked as if they were built out of the refuse of lumber-yards, tin-shops, straw-stacks, and even rag-bags, and how some of these huts could hold together it was hard to understand. Nearly every house had its china-tree, a small tree whose foliage grows in a ball and gives a very thick shade. There were the mesquite-tree, also small, the pepper-tree with its pretty pink berries and lacelike leaves, and an occasional fig-tree.

The market-place interested the children very much, though it was not the principal market day and there was no crowd. The people had very few of their fruits and vegetables in measures, having them arranged instead in little piles on the ground at so much a pile. There were sheaves of sugar-cane, also, the first the children had seen. Mrs. Stevens wished to take the picture of a little girl who was superintending some of the heaps, and her father willingly allowed it ; but when she turned to take a snapshot of a man carrying a great basket strapped on his back by a band across his forehead, the man began to run and she had to give it up. ' ' I suppose he thinks something dreadful will happen to him if I get his picture," she said. "They say many of the people are very superstitious and think the camera is as bad as the 'evil eye.' "

"What's the evil eye?" asked Roy.

"Among most savage or half-civilised people and even among the most ignorant of civilised people, such as the Italian peasants, there is a general belief that certain persons have the evil eye; that is, if their attention is attracted to and fixed on any person, something evil will happen to that person. And in this belief, they wear charms and amulets to ward off the danger. ' '

At the Cathedral, they all got out of the carriage and went in for a few minutes. Mass was about to be celebrated and the church bells were ringing musically. The congregation was chiefly Mexicans (i. e., mixed Spanish and Indian) and Indians, with a few white people. The women were nearly all in sunbonnets, though there were a very few mantillas and the black shawls that take the place of mantillas in Mexico. Every woman seemed to have a fan and to keep it going. The back of the Cathedral was very old, with massive walls, and the driver said it dated back to 1744.

The children were so surprised to find so foreign-looking a town in the United States that they asked their father for an explanation, and when they entered the Alamo, which had been successively a church or convent, a fort and a prison, and was now a historical show-place, they all sat down for a few minutes while he told them a little of the history of San Antonio.

GAME OF MEXICAN HISTORY

(Specimen Cards)

GREAT AZTECS

Moctezuma II, killed 1521

Cuauhtemoc, successor of Moctezuma