The Mexican Twins Part 1

The Mexican Twins.

by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

_This is a picture of Antonio Francisco Gomez[1] and his twin sister, Margarita Teresa Gomez.

They live on the great hacienda[2], or plantation, of Senor Fernandez's[3], in the wonderful country of Mexico, and they are eight years old.

The boy is named Antonio for Saint Antonio and Francisco for his father, and the girl is named Margarita for Saint Margarita and Teresa for her mother.

But n.o.body ever thinks of calling the Twins by all these names. They are called just Tonio and t.i.ta, to save time.

Even their father isn't called by his long name! Everybody calls him Pancho[4]--that is, everybody but the Twins, of course.

Their mother isn't called anything at all for short. She is always called Dona Teresa[5]. I do not know why this is, unless perhaps it is because she can make better tortillas, and chicken mole, and candied sweet potatoes than any one else on the whole hacienda.

Pancho is a vaquero, or cowboy.

There are hundreds of cows and oxen and sheep and goats on Senor Fernandez's hacienda, and all day long, every day, Pancho rides about on his horse Pinto, rounding up cattle, driving the cows to pasture after milking, or getting the oxen together for the plowing.

The Twins think it is a fine thing to be a vaquero and ride horseback all the time.

Tonio means to be one when he grows up. He practices riding on Tonto, the donkey, now, and he has had his own la.s.so since he was six.

If you will turn the page you will find a picture of the little adobe hut where Tonio and t.i.ta and Pancho and Dona Teresa live. Pancho isn't in the picture, because he and Pinto are away in the fields, but Dona Teresa is there grinding her corn, and t.i.ta is feeding the chickens, while Tonio plays with his dog, Jasmin[6].

Tonio is looking out from the shed at the end of the hut. t.i.ta's cat is on the roof. She is almost always on the roof when Jasmin is about.

Beside the hut is a fig tree, which bears the most delicious figs.

Every night the red rooster, the five hens, and the turkey go to roost in its branches, and every day its green boughs make a pleasant shade across the dooryard.

Back of the hut there is a tiny garden with bee-hives, and beyond that there is a path through the woods that leads down to a little river. It was in this very path, just where the stepping-stones cross the river, that Tonio met--But there! it tells all about that in the story and you can read it for yourselves._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[1] p.r.o.nounced Go'mess.

[2] Ah-si-en'-dah.

[3] Fer-nahn'dess.

[4] Pahn'cho.

[5] Don'ya Tay-ray'sa.

[6] Hahss-meen'.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I

SAN RAMON'S DAY IN THE MORNING

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I

SAN RAMON'S DAY IN THE MORNING

I

One summer morning the red rooster on his perch in the fig tree woke up and took a look at the sky.

He was a very responsible rooster. He was always the first one up in the morning, and I really think he believed that if it were not for him the sun himself would forget to rise.

It was so very early that a few stars still shone, and a pale moon was sailing away toward the west. Over the eastern hills the rooster saw a pink cloud, and knew at once that it was time to wake the world. He stood up and stretched his wings. Then he crowed so long and loud that he nearly fell off his perch backward, on to the cat, who was sleeping on the roof just below.

"c.o.c.k a doodle do-o-o!" he screamed. "I'm awake, are you-oo-oo?"

At least that is the way it must have sounded to all the other roosters in the little village, for they began at once to answer him.

"c.o.c.k a doodle doo-oo, we're up as soon as you-oo," they cried; and soon there was such a chorus of them calling back and forth that the five hens woke up, one after another, and flew down from the perch, to hunt bugs for their breakfast.

Last of all the turkey opened his eyes and flapped heavily to the ground, gobbling all the way.

The cat stretched herself and sprang from the roof to the fig tree and sharpened her claws on its bark.

The birds began to sing, and still there was no sound from the tiny gray adobe house under the fig tree.

The little white hen tiptoed round to the front of the hut and peeped in at the open door. There in one corner of their one room lay Tonio and t.i.ta and their father and mother, all sound asleep.

The little white hen must have told the red rooster what she saw, for he followed her and looked into the hut too. Then he ruffled his neck feathers, flapped his wings, and crowed so loudly that Pancho and Dona Teresa and the Twins all woke at once and sat up with a bounce, to see what was the matter.

It startled the little white hen to see them all sit up suddenly in a row, so she squawked and scrambled out through the open door as fast as she could go.

The red rooster ran too, and the two of them never stopped until they disappeared behind the bee-hives in the garden.