SCHOOL BOY IN PORTO RICO.
I was sitting in my room at the hotel at Lares, tired out after two days on pony-back, my first trip into the mountains of the interior, and my first experience on horseback. My long ride and consequent fatigue, my position, far from home, family and friends, in a new region where language, food, customs, all were strange, made me feel most lonesome. Only a good night's sleep could ward off a threatened attack of home-sickness, a longing to see the land and hear the language "that God made," as the boys in blue express it.
Suddenly a new sound aroused me, drew me to the porch, and brought a relief which only travelers who have been far from the homeland can realize. Four young girls on the next porch, scarcely visible in the gathering darkness, were singing:
"Mee condree, teez os tee,
Shweet land of lee-bertee,
Os tee we zeeng.
Land where mee fathers died.
Land os tee peel-greem's pride,
From ef ree mountain side
Let freedom reeng."
No one saw the tears that came or knew about the restful feeling which followed me into dreamland. I had not left my country. Its spirit, its love of liberty, the happy "songs in the night" which it had put into the mouths of its sons and daughters, had preceded me.
Every night during my stay in Lares, the four girls, one of them a daughter of the alcalde, or mayor, who made me understand that they had learned this song from their teacher, sang America for "el Americano," whose coming and talk about a possible school had made such a stir in their beautiful village.
When we opened an American Missionary Association school in Santurce and later in Lares, was it strange that America was the first song taught to the children? How quickly they learned it and how they sang it, with a spirit and enjoyment which I have rarely seen equaled. Then followed: "Rally Round the Flag," "The Star Spangled Banner," and "Marching through Georgia." They were the best means of instilling the spirit of patriotism and most effective agencies in training the pupils to keep together and follow a leader.
One day I heard several Porto Ricans singing with such spirit and earnestness a strange, rather weird melody; they told me it was "Borinquen," their national song extolling the beauties of their island home—called Borinquen by the original inhabitants. When I proposed in school one day, after singing America, that we would try Borinquen, if one of the older young ladies would lead us, the quiet that came over the school, the brightening of faces and air of expectancy, removed all possible doubt about their love of their island. After that America and Borinquen usually came together. Every Porto Rican and Spaniard learned to sing America.
