Outside of every house there is sure to be a field of maize, big enough to furnish the family with all they need during the year. When the maize is ripe it is gathered and put away for future use. Every evening the women of the household take some of it and place it in jars of hot water. They add a little lime to soften it. When morning comes, they take it from the jar, and spreading it on a stone bench, make it into paste with a stone roller. Now it is put into a dish, and enough water added to make it into a batter thick enough for pancakes. One by one these are baked before a fire of charcoal. Hours are spent each day preparing tortillas. Even the rich people of Mexico are fond of tortillas, and hire special cooks to prepare them for the table.
The Indian children are very strong. The boys practice running and learn to carry heavy loads on their backs with ease. Many of the men are porters, or work in the silver mines carrying out the ore; some of them, however, are busy on the farms. As the boys grow up, they generally follow the same trade as their fathers. The pay is small and the work is hard, but it seems easier for the Indians to keep to the same old habits that were formed under their masters, the Spaniards.
Wherever you may travel in Mexico, you will meet Indian porters with heavy loads on their backs, moving along at a steady trot. Hour after hour they will keep this up, carrying seventy-five or a hundred pounds at a time. The Indian farmers may be fifty or even a hundred miles from a market for their goods, but it does not seem to trouble them that the vegetables they wish to sell must be carried all the way on their backs.
Besides the Indian and creole children are the half-castes whose skins are darker than those of their white brothers and sisters, though many of them have rosy cheeks. They are pleasant and good-natured, but are apt to be sly and lazy.
The fathers of the little half-castes are generally farmers or mule drivers. Their older brothers and sisters are often servants in the homes of the wealthy creoles, where they learn the ways and fashions of the white people and try to copy them.
Most of the boys and girls of Mexico go to school which they must reach by seven o’clock in the morning, and where they spend about ten hours of each day. The seats and desks are not comfortably arranged as they are in most places in the United States. Those children who can have chairs are fortunate, for many of them sit on benches and even on the floor. They study aloud, so you can imagine what a chattering there is. It is hard to understand how they manage to get their lessons.
There are many holidays in Mexico, when the tiresome schools are closed and both big folks and little give themselves up to feasting and dancing.
One of these, Good Friday, is celebrated in a curious way. All day long men go through the streets carrying figures of the traitor Judas hanging from long poles. They stop from time to time as children come running up to them to buy a Judas. Now comes the sport, for the figures can be blown up. Bits of lighted punk are held against the figures, when they suddenly burst like fire-crackers and make noise enough to deafen the ears of the passer-by. It is no wonder the children save up their money for Good Friday so that they can buy numbers of Judases.
The evening is the best part of the whole day, for then immense Judases are hung up on lines across the streets and crowds of people gather to watch them while they are blown up and exploded. At the same time the city bells ring out the glad news that Judas has been destroyed. The strangest part of all is the crackling noise that now follows, representing the breaking of the bones of the two thieves who were crucified at the same time as Jesus. The Mexicans certainly have a queer way of celebrating Good Friday.