“But in view of the circumstances that provoked the assault,” interrupted the judge, “I’ll suspend your sentence during good behaviour.”
“But Yip,” begged the man without a father.
“I’ll suspend Yip’s sentence, too,” smiled the judge.
NEMESIS
By Mary Clark
The Little White Mare stirred uneasily in the narrow stall, and shifted her weight from one three-legged balance to another. There was no room to lie down, and the warm stench of ankle-deep manure could not rise as far as the small opening where, occasionally, penetrated a flickering beam from the arc light at the corner.
The day’s work had been hard, and supper inadequate; in her dreams there came the taste of a carrot, succulent, crunchy, tender, but solid, a carrot such as the little boy used to give her—the little boy who lived on the long street of the hard pavement and the many car-tracks. That was in the days when Estevan and she had carried fruit and vegetables in the old cart, and pleasantly, had stopped before many houses, often three and four times in a block. By her association memory (the only memory psychologists allow her kind) she recognized that street whenever she crossed it in her journeys—the Street of the Carrots.
But, latterly, they carried other things in the cart, heavy, jangly things, queer, knobby sacks that Estevan gathered hastily, a few at a time, at strange hours, in quiet places. In night journeys to dark alleys and courtyards the loads were transferred to other Mexicans, who counted small jingling pieces into Estevan’s ready palm. Nowadays there were no carrots, no rest under spreading cottonwoods and chinaberries. With Estevan there never had been anything to associate but work and blows. Such is life—far too little dirty water from a dirty pail; roughage for food, with, now and then, a grudging heap of cheapest grain; a galling harness; a filthy stall; work—never-ending work; a child and a carrot the only memory of a kindness!
El Paso she knew, not as you know it—its mountain vistas, its blocks of substantial homes and pleasant bungalows, but as her half-starved, rickety old frame knew it: hard-paved streets that hurt her feet; dreadful, unpaved ones where she stumbled in the ruts and mud or choked with dust; the mountain winds of winter; the wicked summer gusts that gather up adjacent Mexico and blow it to the Mesa, only, a few days later, to resume the burden and with it madly assail Mt. Franklin; the cruel summer heat when, afternoon long, Estevan dozed in the cool ’dobe while she stood in the pitiless glare, harnessed and helpless, envious of the paltry, flapping shadow cast by the red rag that floated over the abarroteria, telling, though she neither knew nor cared, that carne, fresh carne, was for sale that day. And heat, glare, red rag, dreadful streets of Chihuahuita, their memory association was—flies, millions, billions, black, busy, buzzing, biting flies.
Now, even in her sleep, she heard them.