Twenty-five, but he had been many places and done many things. Mac was over six feet tall-a brute of a man, in the magnificent insolence of youth. But for me, give me a clean little American girl.”. “You can crack up your pretty senoritas all you want to. “Do you remember them two little girls you and I had in Kansas City that winter?” Tom-and-Jerries in the solemn righteousness of a Convention of Table, and, as none of us besmirched the reputation of theįemininity of the Great Republic, he proceeded. “If any man dared to dirty the fair name of theĪmerican Woman to me, I think I’d kill him.” He glared around the “Imagine what would happen if you spoke like that about a woman to an AMERICAN!” “They’ve got no Pride,” said Mac, gloomily. “And do you know,” the other man shook his finger severely at me, “you can tell all that to a Mexican Greaser and he’ll just laugh at you! That’s the kind of dirty skunks they are!” “I got a nice little Indian girl down in Torreon,” began the They just take anybody they happen to like. ![]() Virtue-it simply doesn’t exist! They don’t get marriedĮven. Why they never wash more than twice a year. “Mexican women,” said one, “are the rottenest onĮarth. Seven years, and I know the people down to the ground!" Kind that preface all remarks by “I’ve been in this country In Chee Lee’s we met up with two more Americans. “Why when you die-you know.” Now he was disgusted, and angry. “But I don’t go around knocking God: There’s too much risk in it.” “I’m notĪ religious man,” and here he spat. “I don’t want to butt in on a man’s religion.” “Hell, no,” said Mac, in a slightly strained voice. “Let’s go in and see the service,” I said. And from the cathedral itself, a pale red light streamed out-and strange Indian voices singing a chant that I had heard only in Spain. To make up a new verse about the exploits of the GreatĪt the great doors of the church, through the shady paths of the Plaza, visible and vanishing again at the mouths of dark streets, the silent, sinister figures of black-robed women gathered to wash away their sins. Serapes, sat around a fire chanting the interminableīallad of the “Morning Song to Francisco Villa.” Each singer had ![]() A drunken officer passed us, and, mistaking theįiesta, yelled “Christ is born!” At the next cornerĭown a group of soldiers, wrapped to their eyes in Hills, from the sentries in the streets, came the sound ofĮxultant shots. Villa’s army was quartered, from distant outposts on the naked All over the city, from the cuartels where Remember that as we sallied out of the Hotel for a Tom-and-JerryĪt Chee Lee’s, the cracked bells in the ancient cathedral were He was a breath from home-an American in the raw. I met Mac down in Mexico-Chihuahua City-last New Year’sĮve. First Published: April 1914 in The Masses
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |