Lucky was the boy who had a real to spend at the fiesta, for a goodly portion of anything would be sold at the standard price of a centavo.
Meanwhile, over in one corner, the men gathered around a Mexican from a nearby town who was running a gambling game with the cards, while his partner dispensed bottles of the agave brandy. Soon the inevitable vicious altercation would arise. To be sure it was limited to a violent flood of profanity and only reputation and dignity were injured, but the women shrank away while drunken cries filled the air. A few cool heads interfered before any irreparable damage was done, but it was not always thus, as a rude cross or two in the neighborhood of the pueblo, marking a place where a soul had come to a violent end, mutely attest.
It was the Christmas season that was particularly celebrated at Azqueltán, for then the old pageant of “Los Pastores” was performed. For weeks before, the performers, all prominent men of the village, were engaged in making their costumes of long, white dresses and their staffs decorated with colored tinsel and tissue paper. The words and music had been handed down from the days of the first Spanish missionaries, and depicted the adventures of a group of shepherds journeying to the nativity. José’s father, Francisco, played the part of the hermit with a crude mask of wood and an immense rosary of wooden beads. It was José’s ambition to take the part of Satan, who attempted to prevent the pilgrimage.
“José,” said Francisco one day, “it is high time you were married. You are eighteen now and most of the boys of your age are married already. I cannot afford to support you any longer and you must set up for yourself. I’ve been hearing a great deal about your affairs with several girls—yes, and with some of our married women too! And it will have to cease.”
Here Don Pancho chuckled to himself, for he had a great deal of pride in his handsome son and enjoyed the gossip of his amours. José had learned to be a fair performer on the fiddle and the guitar, and would sit by night with a few other free lances of his own age under the eaves of some straw hut watching the stars come out in the beautiful crisp, evening air and singing melancholy love songs. Most of the girls succumbed to his advances at once, but there was one who rejected them with affected scorn and she, of course, was the one he most desired. Consequently he began to hedge at his father’s suggestion.
“But, little father,” said he, “I don’t want to get married yet,—possibly I never will!”
“What nonsense!” exploded Francisco. “It’s all right for Gringos to be bachelors; they can hire women to do their work; they can eat in tiendas. But you! Who’ll make your tortillas? Who’ll make your clothes? Don’t be a fool!”
José knew it was up to him to get a wife, but he wished a little more time to press his suit with Josefa, the much-to-be-desired daughter of Cándido Gonzales. “Give me another month, little father,” he asked, and Francisco agreed.
So José sought out his grandfather, old Nestor. Bashfully he hesitated and “stalled” until at last the sly old man suspected the truth.
“Come, come!” he ejaculated. “Speak out! What is it, a girl?” José presented his case. The old man swelled up with pride.