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The Mexican Twins
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The Mexican Twins
_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 nobody ever thinks of calling the Twins by all these names. They are called just Tonio and Tita, 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 lasso since he was six.
If you will turn the page you will find a picture of the little adobe hut where Tonio and Tita 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 Tita 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. Tita'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._
[1] Pronounced G[=o]'mess.
[2] Ah-s[=i]-en'-dah.
[3] Fer-nahn'dess.
[4] Pahn'cho.
[5] D[=o]n'ya Tay-ray'sa.
[6] Hahss-meen'.
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.
"Cock 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.
"Cock 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 Tita 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.
"Upon my soul!" she cried, crossing herself, "the red rooster gave me a dreadful turn. I was just in the midst of a most beautiful dream! But now he has driven it all out of my head with his silly noise, and I cannot even remember what it was about!"
Dona Teresa rose, and while she talked she deftly rolled up the mat on which she had slept and stood it on end in the corner of the room. You see it didn't take any time at all to dress, because they always slept with their clothes on. But Dona Teresa was very particular about one thing. She made them all wash their faces and hands the very first thing every single morning!
For a wash-basin there was a part of a log, hollowed out like a trough. Beside the hollow log there was a large red olla, with a gourd in it. Pancho had dipped water from the olla into the trough and was already splashing about, while Dona Teresa rolled the Twins off on to the floor and placed their mats in the corner with the others.
"Come, my pigeons," she said to them, "it is time to be stirring. We are very lazy to lie in bed after cockcrow on San Ramon's[7] Day!"
"Oh, Little Mother," cried Tita, picking herself up, "is it really the fiesta of San Ramon? And may I take the little white hen to be blessed, all myself?"
"You may take the little white hen if you can catch her," Dona Teresa answered. "Indeed, we must take all the animals, or at the very least one of each kind to stand for all the others. The turkey must be caught, and the goat must be brought from the field so I can milk her. Tonto [that was what they called the donkey] is waiting in the shed to be made ready, not to speak of the cat and dog! Bless my soul, how many things there are to be done!"
While his mother talked, Tonio had taken his lasso down from the nail where it hung, and was just quietly slipping out of the door with it, when Dona Teresa saw him. "Here you--Tonio," she cried, "come back and wash yourself!"
"Can't I wait until I've caught Pinto?" Tonio begged. "What's the use of washing? You only get dirty again. Lots of the boys don't wash at all except on Sunday."
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