On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

There were trained dogs and men who knew how to make a barrel roll up or down an inclined plane. All these received a due share of the homage of their fellow-citizens, but nothing to compare to the enthusiasm which greeted the advent of the genuine “teatro.” That was the time when all Tucson turned out to do honor to the wearers of the buskin. If there was a man, woman, or child in the old pueblo who wasn’t seated on one of the cottonwood saplings which, braced upon other saplings, did duty as benches in the corral near the quartermaster’s, it was because that man, woman, or child was sick, or in jail. It is astonishing how much enjoyment can be gotten out of life when people set about the task in dead earnest.

There were gross violations of all the possibilities, of all the congruities, of all the unities in the play, “Elena y Jorge,” presented to an appreciative public the first evening I saw the Mexican strolling heavy-tragedy company in its glory. But what cared we? The scene was lighted by bon-fires, by great torches of wood, and by the row of smoking foot-lights running along the front of the little stage.

The admission was regulated according to a peculiar plan: for Mexicans it was fifty cents, but for Americans, one dollar, because the Americans had more money. Another unique feature was the concentration of all the small boys in the first row, closest to the actors, and the clowns who were constantly running about, falling head over heels over the youngsters, and in other ways managing to keep the audience in the best of humor during the rather long intervals between the acts.

The old ladies who sat bunched up on the seats a little farther in rear seemed to be more deeply moved by the trials of the heroine than the men or boys, who continued placidly to puff cigarettes or munch sweet quinces, as their ages and tastes dictated. It was a most harrowing, sanguinary play. The plot needs very few words. Elena, young, beautiful, rich, patriotic; old uncle, miser, traitor, mercenary, anxious to sell lovely heiress to French officer for gold; French officer, coward, liar, poltroon, steeped in every crime known to man, anxious to wed lovely heiress for her money alone; Jorge, young, beautiful, brave, conscientious, an expert in the art of war, in love with heiress for her own sweet sake, but kept from her side by the wicked uncle and his own desire to drive the last cursed despot from the fair land of his fathers.

(Dirge, by the orchestra; cries of “Muere!” (i.e., May he die! or, Let him die!) from the semi-circle of boys, who ceased work upon their quinces “for this occasion only.”)

I despised that French officer, and couldn’t for the life of me understand how any nation, no matter how depraved, could afford to keep such a creature upon its military rolls. I don’t think I ever heard any one utter in the same space of time more thoroughly villainous sentiments than did that man, and I was compelled, as a matter of principle, to join with the “muchachos” in their chorus of “Muere!”

As for Doña Elena, the way she let that miserable old uncle see that his schemes were understood, and that never, never, would she consent to become the bride of a traitor and an invader, was enough to make Sarah Bernhardt turn green with envy.

And Jorge—well, Jorge was not idle. There he was all the time, concealed behind a barrel or some other very inadequate cover, listening to every word uttered by the wicked old uncle, the mercenary French officer, and the dauntless Helen. He was continually on the go, jumping out from his concealment, taking the hand of his adored one, telling her his love, but always interrupted by the sudden return of the avuncular villain or the foe of his bleeding country. It is all over at last; the curtain rings down, and the baffled Gaul has been put to flight; the guards are dragging the wretched uncle off to the calaboose, and Jorge and his best girl entwine themselves in each other’s arms amid thunders of applause.

Then the payazo, or clown, comes to the front, waving the red, white, and green colors of the Mexican republic, and chanting a song in which the doings of the invaders are held up to obloquy and derision.

Everybody would be very hungry by this time, and the old crones who made a living by selling hot suppers to theatre-goers reaped their harvest. The wrinkled dames whose faces had been all tears only a moment ago over the woes of Elena were calm, happy, and voracious. Plate after plate of steaming hot “enchiladas” would disappear down their throats, washed down by cups of boiling coffee or chocolate; or perhaps appetite demanded “tamales” and “tortillas,” with plates of “frijoles” and “chile con carne.”