If the reader do not care for such scenes, he can find others perhaps more to his liking in the various amusements which, under one pretext or another, extracted all the loose change of the town. The first, in popular estimation, were the “maromas,” or tight-rope walkers and general acrobats, who performed many feats well deserving of the praise lavished upon them by the audience. Ever since the days of Cortés the Mexicans have been noted for gymnastic dexterity; it is a matter of history that Cortés, upon returning to Europe, took with him several of the artists in this line, whose agility and cunning surprised those who saw them perform in Spain and Italy.
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, but it is all over at last.
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.”
The banquet may not have been any too grand, out in the open air, but the gratitude of the bright-eyed, sweet-voiced young señoritas who shared it made it taste delicious. Tucson etiquette in some things was ridiculously strict, and the occasions when young ladies could go, even in parties, with representatives of the opposite sex were few and far between—and all the more appreciated when they did come.
If ever there was created a disagreeable feature upon the fair face of nature, it was the Spanish dueña. All that were to be met in those days in southern Arizona seemed to be possessed of an unaccountable aversion to the mounted service. No flattery would put them in good humor, no cajolery would blind them, intimidation was thrown away. There they would sit, keeping strict, dragon-like watch over the dear little creatures who responded to the names of Anita, Victoria, Concepcion, Guadalupe, or Mercedes, and preventing conversation upon any subject excepting the weather, in which we became so expert that it is a wonder the science of meteorology hasn’t made greater advances than it has during the past two decades.
The bull fight did not get farther west than El Paso. Tucson never had one that I have heard of, and very little in the way of outdoor “sport” beyond chicken fights, which were often savage and bloody. The rapture with which the feminine heart welcomed the news that a “baile” was to be given in Tucson equalled the pleasure of the ladies of Murray Hill or Beacon Street upon the corresponding occasions in their localities. To be sure, the ceremony of the Tucson affairs was of the meagrest. The rooms were wanting in splendor, perhaps in comfort—but the music was on hand, and so were the ladies, young and old, and their cavaliers, and all hands would manage to have the best sort of a time. The ball-room was one long apartment, with earthen floor, having around its sides low benches, and upon its walls a few cheap mirrors and half a dozen candles stuck to the adobe by melted tallow, a bit of moist clay, or else held in tin sconces, from which they emitted the sickliest light upon the heads and forms of the highly colored saints whose pictures were to be seen in the most eligible places. If the weather happened to be chilly enough in the winter season, a petty fire would be allowed to blaze in one of the corners, but, as a general thing, this was not essential.
The moment you passed the threshold of the ball-room in Tucson you had broken over your head an egg-shell filled either with cologne of the most dubious reputation or else with finely cut gold and silver paper. This custom, preserved in this out-of-the-way place, dates back to the “Carnestolends” or Shrove-Tuesday pranks of Spain and Portugal, when the egg was really broken over the head of the unfortunate wight and the pasty mass covered over with flour.