Further Records of a Family in Spanishtown [pp. 347-355]

Further Records of a Family in Spanishtown.
done, and wondered that the old sounds
of life should be so unfamiliar. Sounds
that I had never noticed before struck
my ear with almost painful distinctness,
the rattle of a distant carriage, the busy
hum of life, the glare of the electric
lights - all seemed strange to me. Yet
in spite of this I felt that these were my
natural surroundings, and with a sense
of satisfaction I knew that I was at home.
H. Elton Smith.
FURTHER RECORDS OF A FAMILY IN SPANISHTOWN.
MRS. HANCOCK'S brother Juan is what
I should call a horse-breaker, but Mrs.
Hancock's sister-in-law began by speaking of him somewhat disrespectfully as a
"hoss jockey." When she first called
him that, the Spanish woman, who was
as usual sitting by the three-cornered
fire-place, smoking cigarettes, turned
slowly and looked at the speaker with a
greater show of interest on her face than
I had ever seen there before.
"Claris- see," she said, "who is that
name you go to call on to my brother?"
The English employed by Inez is not
always strictly idiomatic, but it is usually intelligible.
Clarissy visibly braced herself for her
reply: She scorned trying to hide the
fact that she had spoken with some contempt. Inez puffed smoke and waited.
"I said a hoss jockey," she replied
primly, "and I said what I meant."
"And is it," responded Inez, "that the
hoss jockey is a person of honorableness
in that place where you been to live in
the formerly?"
At this moment Lemuel Hancock himself appeared in the open door. He had
heard his wife's question. He had a
queer look in his eyes as he glanced from
one woman to the other. He smoothed
his thin, sandy whiskers, and remarked
in his good natured drawl, looking
straight into the fire as he spoke:
"Jockeys, is it? Well, there aint any
callin' much higher than to be one of
them out in New England. They're the
high mindedest folks there is. I wanted
to be one myself, but father he could n't
afford it."
Clarissy staretl at her brother in
speechless amazement. Mrs. Hancock,
however, made a murmur of satisfaction
at the explanation, leaned her head back,
and watched the smoke curl away from
her lips.
I, sitting in the obscure background
with the terrier James, who was good
enough to repose on my lap, watched,
and listened, and wondered. Clarissy
was so overcome by her brother's definition of a horse jockey that she rose
1890.]
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