Our Latest Citizens
Chapter VIII.
In a Visayan Village.
The fountain on the corner, where the brown, barefooted girls with bamboo water-tubes would gather at the noon hour and at supper-time, was shaded in the heat of the day by a mimosa-tree. The Calle de la Paz y Buen Viaje (Street of Peace and a Good Journey), flanked by sentinel-like bonga-trees and hedged in by a bamboo fence, stretches away through the banana-groves toward the fantastic mountains. A puffing carabao comes down the long street, dragging the heavy stalks of newly-cut bamboo. The pig that has been rooting in the grass, looks up, and, seeing what is coming, bolts with staccato grunts unceremoniously through the bamboo fence.
In the little drygoods-store across the street, Felicidad, the dusky-eyed proprietress, has gone to sleep while waiting for a customer. She has discarded her chinelas and her piña yoke. Her brown arms resting on the table pillow her unconscious head. Her listless fingers clasp a half-smoked cigarette.
The stock of La Aurora is a comprehensive one, including printed cotton goods from China, red and green belts with nickel fastenings, uncomfortable-looking Spanish shoes, a bottle of quinine sulphate tablets, an assortment of perfumery and jewelry, rosaries and crucifixes, towels and handkerchiefs, and dainty piña fabrics. The arrival of the Americano is the signal for the neighbors and the neighbors’ children, having nothing in particular to do, to flock around. The Filipino curiosity again!
On the next corner, where the wooden Atlas braces up the balcony, the Chino store is sheltered from the sun by curtains of alternate blue and white. Here Chino Santiago, in his cool pajamas, audits the accounts with the assistance of the wooden counting frame, while Chino José, his partner, with his paintbrush stuck behind his ear, is following the ledger with his long, curved finger-nail. Both Chinos, being Catholics, have taken native wives, material considerations having influenced the choice; but Maestro Pepin says that, nevertheless, they are unpopular because they work too hard and cause the fluctuations in the prices. By pursuing a consistent system of abstractions from the rice-bags, by an innocent adulteration of the tinto wine, these two comerciantes have acquired considerable wealth.